The Darkest Frontier
by Robert S. Kester
Summary: Takes place in an alternate universe where technology is a little less advanced and a little more modern. Hard to describe, so you should read for yourself and find out. Rated M to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

Episode 101 – The Unborn Dream

"Space... A battlefield. Cold, dark, heartless. These are the voyages of the Federation Battleship Enterprise. Its mission, to defend Federation resources and colonies at all costs, and to protect the lives off all its people. And to go into battle, where no one has fought before..."

"Officer of the Watch, Commander Data's log, Stardate 2356.92, we are currently in the K7 star cluster, inspecting the 494-B system for enemy activity. No Romulan Warbirds have been detected in the area, but Starfleet and the Federation at large are on high alert."

The Combat Information Center of the Enterprise D was lit barely by the blue glow of the touch pad computers, with information streaming over their gleaming, fingerprint covered surfaces at unimaginable speed. At the Helm, a young Ensign sat watching Telemetry of his navigation sensors and paid close attention to the round targeting cursor that was passing over the stars.

Beside him sat the Operations Officer, indicated by his rank insignia to be a Lieutenant Commander. He seemed different, almost non-human. His skin was pale and he operated the station with unwavering concentration. "Ensign Crusher, I am sending you our current scans. Please update our coordinates accordingly."

"Yes, sir, Commander Data, sir." He was nervous, tense. He began pressing a combination of the touch screen keys and the physical ones placed beside each other in ironic contradiction.

A turbolift door at the aft end of the CIC opened and the two Marines stationed there saluted the man walking out, indicated to be a Captain by his insignia. He was young, in his mid twenties, with dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

The man walked over to the tactical station, which was above a small pit with three chairs. His boots made a constant clanking noise as they stepped down upon the metal deck plating. He stared at the computer readouts and then up at the large, vertically positioned plotting board, with its lines and markings emanating a greenish-yellow glow.

The officer stationed there was a male Klingon, busy with the numerous calculations and monitoring everything that his sensors recorded. "How does everything check out, Lieutenant Worf?"

"Fine, Captain Riker, sir." A beep from the panel surprised him and he brought up the new data which was being sent to him. "Wait, I'm getting a strange reading. It's coming from... 223 Kilometers above the nearby star."

"Which star?"

"K7-494-B... This looks like... A Geodesic fold."

"A Geodesic fold? I thought that was impossible."

"As did I... But the sensor readings are clear."

"Okay, Action Stations."

Out in space, the Enterprise D floated idly amongst the vacuum of space, its nacelles glowing and the flaps on them adjusting their orientation every once in a while in order to stabilize the ship. Panels along the hull began to slide away and from them came cannons, which oriented themselves to aim at the nearby white pulsar only a few thousand kilometers away.

"Phase cannons have obtained lock on the Geodesic fold. Soon, we should be able to see who or what is coming from it." Another panel beep, and Worf began moving his fingers over touch and physical keys. "Sensors are detecting alterations from within the fold's subspace structure... I believe something is coming through."

The Operations Officer, Data, relayed what he was learning. "X-Ray detection scanners are picking up extremely anomalous readings coming not from the fold, but what is exiting it. Neutrino and Microwave emissions are acting strangely, as well."

The object was coming through. The shimmering rift above the star was violently shaking until at last, the thing leaped forward from within it, coming to a full stop approximately 1,000 kilometers away from the star. Suddenly, the fold collapsed in on itself and a large explosion rippled out into the star but dissipated before reaching even the ship that had come through. Parts of the star, starting at the contact point of the explosion waves, started to dim and grow black.

The ship that was now here was in a Cube configuration, much larger than the Enterprise, and was covered in mechanical pieces and only lit by a few green lights in certain areas.

Data continued his scans, as did Worf, and then Data discovered something astonishing. "Sir, the Star is collapsing in on itself. The gravitational field is not only interfering with normal space, but subspace as well. Several subspace rifts are forming. At this rate, some will intersect and this area will become extremely distorted. I am detecting lowering radiation levels in the area."

"What does that mean?"

"Simply that the rifts are leading somewhere else, but it seems to be a one-way connection." His panel beep and he read the data out to the Captain. "A rift is forming 3 kilometers off the port bow."

"Full reverse."

Ensign Crusher inputted the data and relayed it to the Captain. "No go, Captain. The rifts are interfering with our ability to generate a gravitational field that can move us away."

The ship shook violently and Worf's sensors detected the cause. "Sir, two rifts intersected with the reactors of the unknown vessel. It was destroyed."

Data's panel began heating up, and when he registered this, he moved away from it. Suddenly, the panel exploded, causing shards of glass to fly out over five feet and imbed themselves in the face of one of the Marines standing by the Ready Room entrance. He instantly dropped over, dead.

Stating the obvious, Data said, "Ops control from the CIC is down."

Captain Riker sat down in the Captain's chair and locked the safety harness down upon himself. He coughed a few times and then asked Data, "Can you reroute it to one of the auxiliary stations?"

"I will try, sir." He moved toward the Aft end of the CIC, fighting the shaking of the ship by adjusting his weight accordingly. He quickly sped his fingers over keys at the port-most station and the displays changed. "I have Operations control, sir. Attempting to shunt power to the stabilizers. Ten percent of reserves rerouted..."

The shaking was significantly less violent, allowing Data and Worf to run more scans. Worf's panel was showing data which he needed to share, "We are moving toward one of the rifts."

The Captain unlocked his restraints and walked up beside of Worf. "How?"

"I'm not sure, sir."

"Do we have shields?"

"Thirty two percent, why?"

"If we go through that thing, we don't know where we might come out."

Data began tapping keys after he heard Captain Riker. "I will attempt to get more power routed to the shields."

Slowly, the Enterprise moved into the blue field of particles marking the rift's event horizon, in a rotational dance, spinning around and around as it sunk into the deep tear in subspace.

"Crusher, can you even us out?" The Captain had to hold onto railing to keep from getting dizzy.

"Yes, sir. Using RCS Thrusters to compensate for gravitational drift..." As soon as the young Ensign inputted the commands, the Enterprise stopped rotating and was now facing the rift, slowly falling into its dense gravitational well.

Commander Data bent down over the dead Marine and checked his pulse. When he sensed nothing, he picked up a device from a panel in the wall and touched a button on its screen. "Combat to Sickbay. We have injured."

It was a woman's voice which answered, "Acknowledged. I'll send a team. Crusher out."

Suddenly, the turbolift doors opened and in walked an African American man, wearing a strange device in front of his eyes. He saluted the Captain and called for his team to move in from the lift. Three men came through, two holding a large device resembling a TV screen, but without the plastic casing, and one carrying a toolbox. They walked over to the Ops station and began pulling out tools in order to remove the old panel that had exploded.

Data walked over to the leader, the black man. "Hello, Geordi."

"Data, how does everything look?"

"We are slowly falling into a subspace rift, with no means of escape." He looked briefly at the dead Marine, his tactical vest shredded by the glass and large gashes torn into his face. "It was my fault. I could have easily taken the full brunt of the explosion, with only minimal superficial damage but instead I chose to back away, and now one man is dead."

Geordi placed his hand on Data's shoulder and sighed. "Don't worry about it. This job is supposed to be risky. These men were prepared as best as they possibly could have been."

"Yes, thank you, old friend."

"Don't mention it. Your station will be up and running in no time." He let Data alone and went back to assisting his fellow officers with connecting the new panel.

On the starboard side of the CIC was an indentation, with a station there. A single female was manning it, listening through a headset she was wearing. Every indication pointed to this station being the Comm station, and the woman there called the Captain over. "Sir, I'm getting a strange signal that sounds like it's coming from the rift."

"Could it just be radiation being picked up by our receiver and translating into noise?"

"No, sir... I can hear a syntax and structure, but I'm still not sure exactly what it is I'm hearing." The Captain picked up his own headset and clipped it onto his ear. All he could hear was strange electronic static, but with a pattern, like a language. He set the headset down and sighed, thinking everything over.

"Ensign Crusher."

"Captain, sir?"

"Take us... In to the rift. Maximum thruster speed."

"Captain?"

"You heard me. I don't think it's possible to escape, and our only other option is to go inside."

"Yes, sir." Slowly, he entered the new heading and speed and watched as the ship confirmed and began moving, at maximum thruster power, into the large spatial distortion directly in front of it. "200 meters away, 150, 100, 50, Captain, we're inside the rift. Navigational sensors can't get a lock on anything to maintain a heading. We're going into a spin."

And so the Enterprise spun wildly as I flew through the rift, but the ride only lasted a few seconds as it was soon thrown out, once again into the vacuum of space. But there were no stars around the ship, only a deep darkness, long into the infinite expanse.

"Ensign Crusher, where the hell are we?"

"Captain, I'm not sure, I'm not detecting anything..."

Data's panel beeped. "Captain, passive photon scans are detecting a light source... Over 32,048,000 light years away."

"On viewer?" Data nodded and the front section of the CIC, which had been just a large area of glass with digital readouts on it before, switched over to a view of the Starboard aft cameras. They were amazed at the sight. They were seeing the Milky Way Galaxy, from outside of it. "The hell? Where are we?"

"Sensors are registering us at 299,999,987.36 light years away from the brim of the Delta Quadrant. We are in the Void."

"The Void?"

"An area of nothingness that spans the distance between two Galaxies. Interesting..."

"What?"

"We are close to the Andromeda Galaxy. At maximum Warp, we can be past the outer rim in 12 days."

"On viewer." They were now seeing a the outer edge of the Galaxy, with cursors highlighting various stars and displaying readouts on them. He clipped on a headset again and then tapped a few physical keys on the Comm panel. "Engineering, do we have Warp?"

"Only up to Warp 5." Down in Engineering, Geordi was standing amongst a large amount of radioactive storage tanks, pipes, valves, water pumps, and various other equipment. This gigantic room was a power plant, 3 decks high and extending nearly ¾ of the length of the Engineering section. He adjusted the headset he was wearing and picked up a tablet PC, signing it and handing it to another engineer, dressed in a jumpsuit and wearing a hardhat.

Data ran the calculations. "At that rate, it will take 20 hours to breach the edge."

"Better that than nothing. Geordi, keep us going until we get there."

"You got. LaForge out." He walked over to a pipe, punched in a code and turned the valve. He watched a scanner attached to the pipe as it showed a multispectral scan of the steam that began to flow through. He logged the data on a small hand-held device and continued going over more of the systems.

Geordi rounded the corner, prepared to check a special tank when suddenly there was a bright, bluish-white flash. In front of him stood a man, dressed in an enlisted uniform with a rank patch on his right shoulder of Specialist.

"Specialist... ?"

"Q."

"Q?"

"Yes, that is who I am, and I've come with a very important message. You have to talk to your Captain, tell him it's a bad idea to go into the Andromeda Galaxy or else you'll miss your chance to get home, today."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Look, we can do this the peaceful way or I can force the ship to turn around."

"Wait, how are we going to get home today? We're millions of light years away. And who are you? How did you transport here at Warp? Have you been on the ship?"

"All these human questions! Shush!" He snapped and for some reason, Geordi was unable to open his mouth. "32,048,202.41 light years away and increasing by the second, to be exact. Now, I can answer some questions. No I haven't been on your ship. I'm from some place you've never heard of, the Q Continuum. We're a race of Omnipotent beings, yes beings with infinite power, and I just haven't the time to explain anything else right now.

"Suffice it to say, this is the Continuum's mess, which I've come to attempt to clean up. And you're going to get home because we're going to send you home. See, I was messing around with the Borg... A very nasty race, and I decided to give them very limited knowledge of how to possibly open a Geodesic fold. I was curious to see what they'd do with it. Unfortunately, this happened." He rolled his eyes and then noticed something. "Ah, safety first, yes!" Suddenly, a hardhat appeared on his head.

Geordi managed to mumble.

"Oh, alright." Q snapped his fingers and the engineer was suddenly able to move his mouth. He walked over to a computer panel and pressed a button on it.

He began speaking into his headset, "Attention security, we have been boarded, send a Marine Assault Team to Engineering A-"

Q sighed, rolled his eyes, and snapped, making Geordi once again unable to speak. He snapped again, causing all of the entrances to Engineering to suddenly disappear. "There, are you happy? Guess I'll have to do everything the hard way."

He snapped one final time, unsealing Geordi's mouth, making the doors reappear, and making himself disappear.

The MAT was busy setting up Plasma Torch equipment when the doors finally reappeared. The leader nodded, aimed his rifle, and opened the door. But there were no signs of anything.

Geordi noticed their entrance and called out. "It's clear! He left!"

The Sergeant signaled two officers to check the area and walked the rest to check on Geordi. "I think the Captain will wanna see you, sir."

"Yeah, thought so..."

Geordi was with the Captain and Commander Data in the Situation Room, a small area behind the CIC with various instruments for displaying sensor readouts and a table running down the middle with a computer console at every seat. There was no light save for that coming from the computer panels and instruments around the room. Captain Riker was sitting at the head of the table, looking at Geordi as the engineer explained the encounter.

"So he just introduced himself as some kind of omnipotent being and asked us to turn the ship around? If he's so powerful, why can't he just send us back from where we are now?"

"I-"

"Oh, Captain, we may be omnipotent, but we still have rules and order. It's not complete anarchy. My job is to get you home on your own power." The same Q from before was now standing at one of the computer stations, entering in data. Suddenly, the readout changed on most of the screens, showing a computer generated energy cloud and the Enterprise approaching it. "We need to reproduce what happened at K7-494-B. We need to cause Enterprise to open a subspace rift, fly through, and arrive somewhere back in the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy."

"Somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant?"

"Well, when you're using primitive machinery, folding space is tricky business."

"Okay. What is it you want us to do?"

"Go back to where you started and we'll go from there."

"Alright. But somehow I get the feeling you're not telling us everything. Why is it so important to get the Enterprise back to a race of all powerful beings like yourselves?"

"In time, my dear captain, in time. All will become clear to you. But remember this: the Lion is the Key."

"The Lion is-" Suddenly, Q disappeared, and left the three officers bewildered. Captain Riker walked back into the CIC and sat in the Captain's chair, bringing a monitor console up that allowed him to see everything that was happening. "Helm, All-Stop."

"All-Stop, aye." Ensign Crusher entered the commands, slowing them from Warp and down to 0 KPH.

"Port, one quarter."

"Port one quarter, aye." After he entered the commands, the port Impulse engine fired up to one quarter of its maximum output, rotating the ship in the exact opposite direction from which it was going.

"Can you find the location at which we entered the Void?"

"There should be a kind of spatial anomaly there, we can look for that, sir."

"Get us there, ASAP."

"Aye, initiating Warp 5.62, our current maximum speed, sir." He was constantly using the Pitch, Yaw, and Roll wheels, along with the three levers for increasing speed to adjust their direction accordingly to the information appearing on screen. They were there, floating in an area of seemingly empty space, but all scans indicated that there was some kind of disturbance at this location.

"Where is that Q? What are we supposed to do here?"

Commander Data turned around from the Ops station to speak to the Captain. "Sir, it may be as simple as flying through the anomaly at a low warp speed."

"Are you sure? What would be the minimum speed?"

"Warp 3."

"Then... Take us in, Ensign Crusher."

"Aye." The computer responded to his request, using a warp field to launch the ship into the rift. There was a lot of violent shaking, and suddenly the Enterprise appeared in the middle of a field of stars, nowhere near the black hole that had formed in the process of what brought them into the void.

But what was there was even worse. A gigantic field of debris, with half ships, broken apart, hull plates and even bodies floating everywhere. "Where are we?"

The Ensign scanned the positions of the stars. "The Sol System, sir. Near Neptune."

Data turned his head to face the Captain. "These ships are all Federation. Some are Galaxy class. There is enough debris here for 37 ships."

"37? That's nearly a quarter of the fleet... What's happened here?"

"Sir?" It was the Radio Operator at the Comm station. "I'm receiving an encrypted message, text only. It's asking for your authentication code."

The Captain pulled a hand-held pad like device from a pocket on his uniform and nodded, as a message to ask the officer to send the message to the device. Once receipt was confirmed, he entered his code and the message appeared, reading only, "IN THE EYE OF THE LION, WE WATCH AND WAIT FOR YOU. DO NOT GIVE UP HOPE."


	2. Chapter 2

Episode 102 – Eye of the Lion

*Author's note: The Situation Room is essentially the Observation lounge, and is located behind the CIC. However, the difference is that on either side of the rear stations (science, engineering, etc.) there is simply an open section which provides access to the room rather than a door or a hatch. This makes the Situation Room essentially a partition of the CIC, separated only by the aft auxiliary stations.

The Captain, Commander Data, Geordi, and Worf were crowded into the Situation room, reviewing star charts. Data brought up a specific image of a nebula. "This is the LS-74 nebula, referred to commonly as the Lion's Head nebula because it is believed to resemble the head of a lion. There is one section here, which is often called the eye."

Data caused the computer screens to target, enlarge and enhance the area of the eye. In the center was a red gleam. "This is what is believed to be a star, but it has never been studied up close because of the distant and remote location of the nebula."

The Captain stood up and walked in front of the computer array on the forward wall, to his left. "What I'm about to tell you stays between all of us, got it? The 'star' is not a star. It's an array. When any officer receives a command position, they're given knowledge of this array, codenamed 'Asgard'.

"Nearly three hundred years ago, the Vulcan High Command conducted a survey of the Lion's Head nebula, and they found this giant abandoned array, with five long pylons, about 1000 by 650 kilometers each and covered in cities protected by barriers from the vacuum of space."

He entered commands to bring up a deep scan of the array and continued his explanation. "They all converge on a very large ring structure, containing multiple different systems, but this ring is mainly designed to harness energy from the nebula in order to power the barriers.

"Before you ask, we have no idea what race built this array, for what purpose, or what happened to them. For now, it serves as a sort of a port in the storm for us, an emergency location to which we can escape from danger. Despite the amount of time the races of the Federation have known about it, only around twenty percent of it has been explored, and most of the technology remains sealed in black boxes, completely baffling analysts who study it.

"Unknown by most is that Asgard serves as a large center of population for families in Starfleet, and the actual Federation council is stationed here. The embassies on Earth are nothing more than a smokescreen. Several billion people, from all races of the Federation are currently residing on the ring. Needless to say, keeping it secret has been a very complex operation."

The Captain nodded to Commander Worf, who displayed body language meaning that he had something to report. When he was free to speak, he brought up a scan of a ship. "Commander LaForge and I have determined that there is one ship out there that is still in working condition, with only minimal necessary repairs."

"Well, what about the crew?"

"There is no human bio-matter present aboard the ship. No life signs or bodies. It was a small, thirty three year old survey vessel, with a maximum crew complement of twenty eight. It's possible we can bring twelve people over and run the ship just fine."

"Why bring it back?"

"It would be useful for spare parts, or even conversion to a small fighter."

"You, LaForge, a crew, and however many Marines you need."

"Yes, sir."

"Geordi, how does everything look?"

"We have shields up to eighty percent and full Warp power. Phase and Kinetic Rail Cannon batteries are all charged and loaded, and we've got Photon Torpedoes in the tubes and Thermonuclear Warheads in the silos. We can take pretty much anything on right now."

"Good, listen up people. I want us to be phantoms in two hours. We'll head straight for the array once the Polaris has Warp."

They all stood, saluted him, and exited the Situation Room, heading for their various stations.

Worf and Geordi were halfway to the Transporter room when Worf stopped him. "Something doesn't feel right, sir."

"Worf, what do you mean?"

"When I examined the debris, any damage that wasn't caused by an explosion, well, it looked symmetrical. There weren't really any burns... It almost looks like the ships were deliberately and delicately taken apart."

"That... Sounds strange."

"I know, sir. I don't understand, either." They entered the transporter room, passing the control area which was partially separated from the transporter area by a 'polarized window' as indicated by the printing on the glass. There were two officers manning the consoles, preparing the coordinates and monitoring all of the equipment.

The main pad was a large circular area, with six arrays descending from the ceiling of rings sizable enough to fit around almost any crew member with cables and mechanics running down them at certain points. The pad was raised in between the array areas about a quarter of a meter or so and the raised areas were covered with 'warning' and 'no step' labels.

On the floor of each pad was a round piece of glass, under which could be seen some kind of spinning round instrument, with six bulbs on it barely emitting a blue light and the entire device was rotating very slowly under each transporter pad.

Worf and Geordi both walked into separate arrays, which at the command of the operators moved as to prevent any possible escape from the device. A blue light began emanating from the rings as they spun and ran up and down the support structure, making sure that the light lit up every square nanometer of the two men's bodies.

On the computer screen of the left operator, it showed three different images of their bodies, each labeled from left to right as 'X-Ray' 'MRI' 'Quantum'. He gave an all clear and the rings remained stationary. The right operator entered some commands, and the device below the pad, under the glass began rotating faster and faster, speeding up exponentially.

The light also grew brighter at a similar rate, and suddenly both Geordi and Worf seemed to be vibrating and shaking as an electrical crackle filled the air. They both began to vibrate so fast that they were both a blur, and in a few seconds, they became less and less solid until trillions of tiny, glowing blue dots filled the space inside the scanning device. These points then coalesced into a center point, which exploded outwards in a crackling dissipation of visible electricity.

The machines underneath the glass then slowed down to that very slow rotation and all of the data on the operators' computers indicated that both occupants of the transporter had arrived safely at their destination.

On the Bridge of the Polaris, two points of blue light appeared, arcing off electric bolts a few centimeters. In a span of a few seconds, the points had separated into many smaller ones, which became more and more solid, becoming blurry, vibrating shapes, and then finally the definitive individuals of Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge and Lieutenant Worf.

Several more lights appeared in a similar fashion all across the Bridge, eventually forming crew, Marines, and equipment. The Marines instantly raised their rifles and entered a tactical formation, exiting the Bridge to secure the ship.

Commander LaForge was setting up various pieces of equipment, monitoring everything and taking notes on it. Worf was in the process of going over the weapons systems. "Shields, inoperable. This ship only has four phase cannons for defense, no power to them currently. I'm attempting to route power there, but the system says there is no current."

Commander LaForge picked out two of his enlisted crew to investigate the power conduits running to the phase cannons. They entered a dark corridor one deck below, using their flash lights to find a junction box. The man looked at the woman and instructed her to move to a better position for light as he swung the lid open, letting it clang on the wall while he looked inside.

He'd expected to find frayed wires, but instead found only missing ones. "Well this is strange."

There was a faint sound from down the corridor, which caused the woman to gasp. "Josh, did you hear that?"

"Synthetic Gravity's all out of whack in this old tub. It probably turned back on and made something drop."

"You're sure?"

"Well, no, but..." He turned to face her. "I need you to calm down and be quiet so I can get this done. You don't want the Commander chewing us out, do you?"

"No."

"Then, please, don't jump at every sound."

"Okay."

Several minutes passed and then there was a much louder sound, which even caused Josh to jump. "Damn, what was that?"

"Artificial gravity?"

"No, I don't think so. Stay here."

"No way, it's protocol. Never go alone in a situation like this!"

"Fine, then come." He began carefully making his way down the passage, stopping to scan in rooms with his flash light.

Panicking, the woman took out her sidearm and began aiming it in every room.

Josh stopped and turned to her. "Careful with that thing, Case. It's not a phase rifle, it's got rounds and can't stun. If you miss fire and hit me, it's gonna kill me or hurt a hell of a lot."

"Sorry." She switched the safety on for good measure and made sure not to point it at Josh.

They rounded a corner and entered a larger room, and on the fringes of their flashlights' reaches, they could see medical beds. "Sickbay."

Casey looked up and saw something almost out of place. It was a blue circle of light, not coming completely closed and remaining separated at the bottom. "Hey, you ever see any medical equipment with that kind of a light on it?"

"No." He then pulled out his sidearm, switching off the safety and motioning for Casey to cover him. She stationed herself by a medical bed, resting her arm on it as she aimed her pistol at the strange light.

Josh grew closer, until the edge of his flashlight began revealing something odd. But there wasn't time to fully make it out as there was sudden movement, an increase in blue light, gun shots, and two dead crewmen slumped over medical equipment.

There was a contingent of Marines near the medical bay who all heard the gunshots and began dashing quickly toward the room, their weapons at the ready.

But they were too late. One of them activated a radio device attached to his tactical vest. "We have a security breach. Two dead crewmen. There's something on this ship. I repeat, there is something or someone on this ship."

All but the Marine who had radioed in the situation had their lights trained on the bodies, and they began noticing something very strange, not normal to any sort of decomposition. Under the skin of both crewmen, they could see bulges and blue lines.

Suddenly, some of the blue lines became glows, and the Marines started backing away, suspecting some kind of organic bomb. In the span of a few seconds, a few of the bulges ruptured through the skin and started forming metal plating over the bodies.

All of the Marines filed into the hallway, prepared to lock down the deck and retreat to the Bridge.

Once they arrived and made sure the deck was sealed, they informed Geordi of the situation.

He instantly activated the ship's newly active Comm system to speak to Transporter Control. "Transporter Control, this is Commander LaForge, we need an emergency beam out ASAP."

"That's a negative Commander, there's some kind of strange radioactive interference and we can't get a green light for safe transport."

"Damn." He switched off the radio and looked over at Worf. "This ship got shuttles?"

"Two, but they are on a locked down deck."

"Okay, begin organizing everyone for emergency evacuation. We're out of here in fifteen, okay?"

"Yes, sir." He began rounding up everyone, asking them to put their tactical training to good use because, even though a Marine contingent was at point, things would still be dangerous.

The evacuees and Marines were walking down the same corridor where Sickbay was, as it was the only direct path to the Landing Bay. A few Marines scanned inside the Sickbay, choking up when the bodies were no longer there.

They signaled the group to keep moving, who all had their sidearms trained on any kind of physical, existing object. They found the hatch combing to the Bay, but it wouldn't budge. There was a manual release, a wheel and a pull down lever.

One of the Marines pulled down the lever and turned the wheel while the others got in position to cover him. There was a metal pop and the doors partially slid open, so the Marine called for two Starfleet crewmen to help him move it. He grabbed one side, they the other, and slowly they pulled the door in enough to let the Marines go in and clear the room before moving the Starfleet in.

Around the dark humps of the shuttles went the soldiers, scanning for any threats. One noticed three blue semicircles of light on the upper level and signaled another man to accompany him. They grew closer and closer to the lights, until finally their lights were shining on them. The lights were at the center of the head units of three machines, some kind of humanoid robots just standing there, with metal plates of armor covering them.

At some points there were what seemed to be biological components, and each forearm seemed to be some kind of massive weapon with various tools attached to it.

The lead Marine shouted out to the machines, "Identify yourselves!"

There was no movement whatsoever.

Suddenly, areas on the center machine's body began to glow and it stood threateningly upright, sending out this odd low pitched wave of sound before aiming its left gun arm at the Marines. They all raised their Phase Rifles and the leader signaled them to fire.

Though they were aiming at the machine's center mass, none of the pulses ever made it. Instead, they strangely collected into a sphere placed in front of the machine's gun arm, which grew with every pulse. The leader noticed this and signaled them to stop.

Suddenly, as though it were being transported, the sphere of energy shook violently, dissolved, collapsed in on a single point, then that ball of energy sped into the weapon's firing chamber. A second later, there was a glow appearing at the end of the barrel which then suddenly erupted out in a very wide and long beam of energy, appearing mostly white but changing colors ever so often.

The beam quickly sped at the Marines and engulfed them. There were brief, agonizing screams, and then silence. The stream of energy slowly thinned and thinned until it had disappeared and where the Marines were, there was nothing.

The rest of the people in the bay took cover and aimed their rifles at the machines, letting fire nonstop.

Two of the Starfleet crew fell back, ducking into the shuttles with the intent of activating them and getting everyone out of there.

By now, all three machines were active and taking positions around the upper level. One of them aimed what appeared to be a mini-gun, which began spinning up and firing. But, rather than just firing straight forward, the rounds split off and headed for specific targets.

Another of the machines aimed his arm at one of the Marines, who slowly started lifting into the air. He screamed as some of his bones started breaking and his body began compressing. Eventually, all of his body had compressed into the size of a gory, bloody basketball which then began to shake and become a stream of energy, which just as the other weapon had, collected into one point and sped into the barrel.

A few seconds later, the machine was firing a pure blue stream of energy out of its weapon, vaporizing two people, but this weapon lasted significantly less than the other beam which had used Phase Rifle pulses.

The other machine raised a weapon, which looked to be two halves separated by some kind of strip holding strange looking canisters. A device at the front end of the weapon was lobbing the canisters around the room, which exploded in a wave of electricity. Yet, it left a cloud of smoke, which seemed to be electrically charged, keeping a torrent of electricity in the room as long as the smoke was around.

The battle raged on until finally one of the shuttles was active. Inside, the pilot radioed to the other auxiliary vehicle. "I'm going to dock on deck one to pick up the officers there. You try and use that thing's Phase Cannons to assist in the fight."

"Roger, shuttle one."

Suddenly, the Bay doors at the aft end opened, swinging upward into the vacuum of space and allowing the shuttle egress. It passed through the shields that were holding the atmosphere inside and began maneuvering around to deck one and the closest docking port to the Bridge.

The piloting crewman watched for a red light on his panel to become green and then sighed, looking at the other man on board. "We have hard seal. Come on, let's go."

The man closer to the rear brought up his sidearm and pointed it at the hatch as the pilot held his weapon at the ready and opened the hatch. They filed into the airlock and switched positions, this time the pilot covered while the other man opened the door to the hallway connecting to the Bridge.

As soon as the door was open, they ran, stopping at various cover points until they arrived in the Bridge. They instantly holstered their guns as they saw Geordi and Worf were okay, simply working and monitoring what was happening in the Landing Bay.

The pilot saluted Commander LaForge, who signaled him to be at ease. "Sirs, we've come with a shuttle to escort you back to the Enterprise. If you'll come with us."

Geordi sighed and then looked at the camera feed from the Bay. "What about those people?"

"We can get a Marine contingent ready and come back, maybe."

"Well, it looks like they'll be able to hold their own for a few minutes using the Shuttle." He switched on the radio, picked up what looked like a phone's handset, and talked into it. "LaForge to Major Ryan, we have a situation here. Prepare a Strike Team and take a shuttle over here. There's a heavy fire fight situation in the Solaris' Landing Bay."

"Aye, Commander." A click and the call was ended, so LaForge and Worf followed the two men back to the shuttle, and before long they were heading to the Enterprise.

One of the crew that began rolling up fuel lines and tools turned to the Commader. "The Captain wants to see you, sir. His Ready Room."

"Okay, Chief. Take care of her."

"Wilco, sir." They saluted each other and the shuttle occupants were off.

Commander LaForge and Worf entered the Captain's dim ready room, noticing him standing over the round table in the middle, which was emitting a large wireframe holographic projection of the Polaris, with random data streaming around in the air and indicators pointing to several key points.

"Ah, Commander and Lieutenant." He noticed their curiosity. "Real time stream of sensor data." He reached out his hand to the display and squeezed all of it down into his hands, forming a blue holographic wireframe ball which he drug down into the emitter, indicating to it to save and end the program.

"You wanted us, sir?"

"Yes, I wanted a complete sitrep on what you saw over there."

"Well, we didn't see much of anything. The fight was on the Shuttle Bay, we were in the Bridge."

"Who did see something, Commander?"

"Specialist Baker, sir."

"Send him up here."

"Yes, sir." The Commander saluted and exited the room, while Worf waited. "Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

"Our people are still over there. Permission to lead an assault?"

"Denied."

"But, sir..."

"Dismissed, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir." He walked back out to the CIC in order to take his station, monitoring the data and examining the situation. The shuttle's pilot, who turned out to be Specialist Baker walked past him, and he stared for a few seconds before continuing his work.

The young man entered the Captain's Ready Room and saluted the Captain. "Sir?"

"Sitrep."

"Sir, some kind of unidentified extraterrestrials attacked our men over there. We were... Nearly wiped out. I doubt the others are still alive."

"Why?"

"Their weapons... Sir, their weapons are so powerful, they make our Phase Cannons look like toys. But I asked the pilot of the other shuttle to use the weapons on it to help fight off the machines."

"Well, maybe they've been successful."

"Perhaps, sir. I know the shuttle's hailing frequency. We can raise it on the horn."

"Okay, then get out to the CIC and talk to the Comm officer."

"There is one more thing, though, sir."

"What is it?"

"Can you keep it yourself?"

"Unless you keep beating around the bush and wasting my time."

"I wanted to tell you that I am not really a crewman of yours, but I am part of Starfleet."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm part of Starfleet Intelligence."

"The SIA?"

"Yes, most notably, a secret Black Ops organizations known as Division 6. If I may," He reached toward the keyboard near the holographic emitter, and the Captain nodded his approval, so Specialist Baker went on tap in an encrypted security code, which changed the holographic readout to show his credentials. "I was told not to reveal this until deemed absolutely crucial. Your away team was attacked by an extremely violent race of cybernetic organisms known as the Pendramar."

"And why can you tell me this?"

"Because this is what we call a Class IV event, violent contact and numerous casualties. In this situation, the Division 6 Officer must notify the Commanding Officer of the Starfleet Deep Space Defense Armada Battleship, Carrier, Cruiser, Frigate, Transport, Starbase, or Colonial Military Base on or in which they are currently operating."

"Are you authorized to disclose information on how to effectively combat these... Pendramar?"

"Not currently, no, since all research has yielded little to no clues on how to actually combat these creatures. Though, recently, I've received a communique from the Secretary of the SIA to order you to set course for Asgard and discuss the situation with the Chiefs of Staff and an alien race which has agreed to help us."

Suddenly the ship rocked and the two men stumbled out into the CIC, watching officers run between stations and collect data. "Sitrep?"

Worf looked up from his panel at the Captain. "An unknown type of energy beam emerged from the Polaris, phased through our shields, and caused hull breaches and fires on several decks."

"The Polaris? You're sure? But they don't have weapons like that, do they?"

"I did not believe so sir, but they do now."

"Can we get it on viewer?" There were a few taps on a keyboard, and the glass rippled a little bit before bringing up the display of a vessel in roughly the same size and shape as the Polaris. It looked significantly different, with various new plates of armor and streaming blue lights along the hull. Suddenly, they could see energy collecting at a single point on the bow of the ship, which then disappeared briefly before firing a wide, white beam that flashed to different colors every once in a while.

"Analysis can't pinpoint the type of energy and only shows a power output rate of between 12 and 32 gigawatts. Modulation... I'm getting multiple readings."

"What?"

"I believe this beam may exist in every single energy modulation simultaneously. Some kind of... Quantum technology, sir."

Baker nodded and looked at the Captain. "Yes, yes, we've encountered this before. All we know is that this beam occupies every single energy modulation at once. Shields have been useless thus far."

"Do you have a defense for it?"

"No, nothing effective yet."

"Damn. Can we still initialize a Warp field?"

The officer currently at the Helm nodded. "Aye, sir."

"Then set course for the Lion's Eye, maximum Warp!" As another beam of energy sped toward the Enterprise, it disappeared into FTL space, hopefully having escaped the enemy ship. "Any signs of pursuit, Data?"

The android entered his commands to search subspace and awaited the results. "No, sir. No signs of the enemy ship. I've accessed our sensor logs, and I have the reason why. As of the time we entered Warp, their engines were offline."

"ETA?"

"At present speed, five hours and thirteen minutes."

The Captain walked over to the Comm station and picked up a headset. "Geordi, can we sustain this Warp factor for five hours?"

"Yes sir, but we'll be running a little hot. I'll do all I can to keep her cool until we get there."

"Alright. Riker out." He slid a switch on the headset over but kept it on, walking into his ready room. He activated the holographic emitter in the center, bringing up a sensor analysis of their previous encounter when the door alarm rang. "Enter."

It was Baker. "Sir?"

"Yes, Mr. Baker?"

"Please, call me John."

"John. This is a sensor analysis of that battle. It seems there really isn't a defense against their weaponry."

"You don't suppose they've gotten to Asgard yet?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't know much about the station, but something's telling me it was built for this."

"Sir?"

"I don't know..." He then initiated a holographic comparison of the Asgard Array and the sensor analysis of the Pendramar weaponry. "Look at this, I knew there was something strange about the Array's shielding. It doesn't work on Quantum frequency modulations... It uses some kind of... Subspace distortion to deflect energy. I've never seen anything like it."

"But it is effective against the Pendramar."

"How do you know this?"

"Years ago, we managed to capture one of their ships and take control of it. It was extraordinarily difficult, since a majority of their systems required direct integration with their mechanical parts, but we managed to fool the weapons control into thinking we were one of them."

"What happened?"

"We fired it at Asgard. The shields blocked it, and they held at maximum power. Our sensors did record numerous backup relays kicking in, though."

"So, two, three shots, and then the shields are down there?"

"I'm not sure. We ended up triggering the ship's security checks, and it beamed us back onto our own."

"Alright. Thanks. I need to study this before we get there."

"Aye, sir."

Captain Riker sat down and began reviewing data, completely losing all track of time until his headset beeped, and it was Commander Data's voice on the line. "Sir, we have arrived at Asgard."

The Captain was surprised and brought up a time display. Indeed, five hours and thirteen minutes had passed. He entered the CIC and nodded at Data, who knew the Captain wanted a visual display on screen.

Up popped Asgard, but surrounding it were countless ships, Starfleet, alien, civilian, military.

The current officer stationed at the helm began moving the ship into the station, carefully avoiding the other ships there.


	3. Chapter 3

Episode 103 – Valley of Darkness

"Space... A battlefield. Cold, dark, heartless. These are the voyages of the Federation Battleship Enterprise. Its mission, to defend Federation resources and colonies at all costs, and to protect the lives off all its people. And to go into battle, where no one has fought before..."

Captain Riker stared at the ships through the glass, with holographic sensor readouts overlaying the vessels and displaying a brief summary of data on them, including name, affiliation, registration, crew complements, and defenses.

As the Enterprise moved further through the ships surrounding them, they could see five unknown ships, three of which were cubical in configuration and two that were spherical, with mechanical parts covering them and green lights emanating from certain areas.

Lieutenant Worf initiated a full tactical scan and sent the data to the forward window, which overlaid itself over the appropriate ships.

"Captain?" It was the Comm officer. "We're receiving a hail. It's coming from the array, they're saying it's the Federation offices in the Alpha Ward?"

"The Wards are the five arms extending from the ring. Cities cover their inner surfaces. On viewer."

Suddenly, the glass rippled and a black human male's face appeared, looking older than any one else on the CIC of the Enterprise, with a graying beard and hair. "Hello, Captain Riker. It's good to see that our flagship made it safely."

"Admiral Yuroa. It's good to see you."

"Will, you've no doubt noticed the five strange vessels. They're part of a species known as the Borg. Normally, and they've admitted to it, they'd have hostile intentions toward the Federation, but they've offered their assistance with the Pendramar problem."

"We've had a run in with them."

"No doubt you have. I'd like to ask you to beam here, to the meeting room, so we can discuss things with the Borg's delegate."

"Then I'll be on my way to the transporter room, sir. Riker out." The screen cut off to show the previous view of the Asgard Array and the five Borg vessels. The Captain headed toward the Turbolift on the Port side of the CIC and took it down to the nearest transporter room.

He made a curt nod to the operators and stepped into the scanner array. The man on the left entered the commands to start the scanner and the machine responded by starting to move. However, in the middle of the scanning sequence, several of the servos moving the scanners began smoking and the operators immediately initiated an emergency shutdown.

"Sorry, sir. We'll have that replaced right away, but it could take a while."

"Okay, but I'm going to take a shuttle pod." He left the room and headed back up to Deck 3, where the primary Saucer Hangar Deck was. A man in a flight suit came out of the pilot's ready room, saluting the Captain before lifting up the entrance hatch to what was indicated to be a Mark 3 Falcon. The Captain stepped into the craft, looking at an array of computer consoles and scanning equipment on the Starboard side.

"Sir, I'll have this cleared with the Air Boss and he'll have it cleared with the Bridge. Shouldn't take more than a minute." Both men in the shuttle looked out into the gigantic Hangar, watching a large amount of enlisted crew members run around with tools and tool carts, servicing various craft.

"That's fine, Lieutenant." The Captain activated a scanner device and it began picking up an anomalous energy source. "You might want to compensate for Anti-Neutrino drift."

"You've never ridden in a Mark 3, have you, sir?" The pilot had a booklet out, and was glancing back and forth at it while flipping switches, rotating dials and tapping keys, while jotting down the results of some of the checks with a pen. He noticed the Captain's puzzled look. "Oh, I like to keep paper records, not just digital."

"No, Lieutenant." He smiled, briefly reflecting on his days of being a pilot. "Just a Mark 1 and 2, and briefly a Mark 2 Eagle."

"You were a fighter pilot?" He'd twisted around to look at the Captain, who gave a nod, before turning back to continue his pre-flight checks. "Oh, it's got an auto-compensator." He entered a code on a small number key pad and there was a beep. "That was it, I just turned it on. It automatically adjusts the Impulse field for a number of things."

"Are we clear yet?"

"Almost. This was an unscheduled flight, and you know how those are, sir."

"Yes, I do."

The pilot adjusted his headset and then gave the Captain a thumbs up before putting on a pressurized helmet, but not yet locking it up. "And we are away."

There was a brief shaking as the kinetic rails under the shuttle moved it over to an elevator, which rose through several airlocks before arriving on a landing area, completely exposed to space. The pilot moved several controls around and the shuttle broke away from the synthetic gravity on the landing deck and moved away at low impulse toward the Alpha Pylon of Asgard.

The shuttle happened to pass under one of the Borg spheres, which instantly shot a green beam of light toward the vehicle. Captain Riker was bewildered when the cabin was suddenly illuminated by the light. He moved over to the array of sensor equipment and began taking scans of the beam.

"Sir, what is it?"

"It's just a sensor beam, apparently. Just concentrate on flying, and we'll be fine."

"Yes, sir." He tapped a few keys once they got closer to the docking port and looked up at what had just appeared on the forward glass. It was a holographic display of rings, with a dotted line path running through them. "Flight path overlay active, and Asgard docking control accepts the flight path. We'll be docking in ten seconds, sir."

The shuttle flew to an area on the edge of the Pylon, with the entrance hatch facing a metal extension and locking onto it. Inside the cabin, a light that had previously been red over the door turned green and the Captain reached for the door handle, pulling it in until there was a pop and the hydraulic pistons connected to it pushed it upward.

The Captain looked into a rather long metal hallway, with a hatch at the end and various computer panels along the edge displaying data on the seal and pressure inside of the tunnel. He signaled the pilot to come and they both walked down to the door at the end, where the pilot insisted on going first.

Once they were inside of the docking airlock, three Starfleet officers greeted them, assisting the pilot in removal of his flight suit and helmet and taking their sidearms, since this meeting was supposed to be entirely peaceful.

An enlisted Vulcan crewman saluted the Captain before being at ease. "Sir, it is my job to escort you to the meeting hall. Your pilot will be escorted to an apartment at which he can await you for the return voyage to your ship."

"Thank you, Petty Officer... ?"

"T'Plel, sir."

"Petty Officer T'Plel. How will we get to the meeting hall in a city this size?"

"We will not be walking. There is an underground structure very similar to the... Subways on Earth."

"Well, lead the way."

"Aye, Captain."

The pilot was being escorted by a rather silent human female, with a rank of Specialist. He looked at her beautiful face and smiled. "Why so quiet, beautiful?"

"Please, sir-"

"Call me Tom. Tom Paris, in fact."

"Please, Lieutenant Paris, sir. Starfleet regulations."

"Well, how about we forget all about those when we get to the apartment?" He ran his hand through her long, brown, well maintained hair and chuckled when she smiled. "Ah, you like me. You know you do."

"Yes, sir. May we go now, sir?"

"Oh, now you're in a rush?"

"Yes, sir." She winked at him and escorted him to another entrance to the subway structure. When they were down there, Tom was surprised to see a surprising number of people boarding and leaving the trains. This trend continued as they exited at the other end and back onto the street. "They're mostly refugees and officers, sir. The Pendramar attacked a lot more people than we expected. But millions of people have been living here for the past several centuries, from many species. They spend most of their time at the trading centers or at residences. The Subway terminals and streets are normally less crowded."

They entered the apartment and took a lift up to the topmost floor, where the Specialist showed Tom a loft, which was surprisingly contradictory. It was computerized and had a wide array of technological systems, but there was a design here, seeming ancient. Tom examined some of the trims closer, looking at the carvings.

"Sir, I've studied history, and I have to say these carvings bear a striking resemblance to the carvings of the ancient Nordic peoples."

"Wait, so this place is called Asgard, and it has carvings like the people who invented the mythical Asgard? That doesn't sound like a coincidence to me."

"Well, Asgard is a codename, but we named it so because of the carvings."

He plopped down on the bed, laying back and stretching his hands into the air. As soon as he did, holographic objects appeared around them. "Whoa!"

"Yeah, they do that." She smiled and began unzipping her uniform, yet remaining silent with a devious smile on her face.

Tom smiled and sat up on the foot of the bed, grabbing her hands and dragging her in for a kiss. "Wait, I never did get a name."

"Jessie."

"Right. Cute." They continued to kiss as Tom slid her out of her jumpsuit and down to her standard issue duty underwear.

The Captain had followed T'Plel all the way into the meeting hall, stopping behind the Vulcan as he entered the code to open the doorway into the chamber. Only the Captain went in, and he saw a large, half circle table with computer consoles and intricate carvings into the wood. There were multiple humans, Vulcans, and Klingons sitting at the table, and standing in front of them all was a strange looking creature, appearing to be almost human, save for a few things.

Its skin was pale and blotched with several gray areas and most of its body was covered in what looked to be some kind of flexible gray alloy, with wires running from it and into various parts of the creature's body. Its right arm was some kind of machine, with devices and tools on it. It turned around and looked at the Captain.

Surprisingly, it looked female almost.

The Admiral from before, Admiral Yuroa cleared his throat. "Um, Will, this is-"

"My designation is Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One."

"Captain Wi-"

"This unit knows your designation. You are Captain William Thomas Riker, Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. We do not have time for organic introductions."

"And what exactly is it we should be doing with our time?"

"It will be easier if you allow me to install a subspace neural transceiver into your cranial unit." She brought up her left arm, which was still relatively normal and two flexible, moving tubules ejected forth from her forearm.

"What?"

"Organic communication is inefficient. The transceiver will allow us to share our thoughts quickly and easily."

"I'm perfectly fine with my organic communication." Seven looked almost angry, but lowered her arm, drawing in the tubules. "Now, I assume you have some kind of a plan to help us defeat the Pendramar?"

"It is not to help you. It is to help us, through helping you."

"Semantics. A problem you'll have to deal with when using organic communication."

"Which is why we should not be using it."

"It doesn't matter. What do you have in mind?"

"We use adaptive technology. We have had... Some success in adapting to the multiply phased beams the Pendramar use, but several of our Cubes were destroyed by them and countless drones were transformed into their drones."

"Do the Pendramar have any relation to the Borg?"

"They are an offshoot of the Collective. Approximately twelve hundred human years ago, Duomatrix eight two three five managed to sever their consciousness from the hive mind, and they journeyed deep into the universe, far into the Andromeda galaxy.

"From what we can tell from examining a slayed drone's memory units, they met some kind of entity there, mostly mechanical, which assisted in transforming them into what they are today."

"If you've had more success than us, what can we possibly do?"

"We will outfit your Federation ships with adaptive technology in order to better defend them. In return, we need the latest Starfleet offensive technology."

"Why?"

"Our weapons may work on similar principles, but Starfleet weapons have signatures that are unfamiliar to the Pendramar, making it more difficult for them to adapt. The Borg have been in combat with them since their arrival in the Delta Quadrant one hundred years ago."

"But they will still adapt, and figure out a way through our shields?"

"But we'll have time, Captain Riker. Possibly another hundred years."

"Alright, you can have a team interact with my engineering team, but no antagonizing the crew. And no offering to install... Neural transceivers or any other kind of modifications."

"We will agree to this arrangement."

Captain Riker was still wearing a headset, which beeped in his ear. He clicked the button on it, and the audio from the Enterprise came through in the form of Commander Data's voice. "Sir, long range sensors have detected a ship approaching at low Warp, factor five point seven two. Analysis indicates it to be the Polaris, though heavily modified. They will arrive in seventeen hours, ten minutes."

"Thank you, Data. Keep me posted."

Back in Tom Paris' temporary apartment, he and the girl named Jessie were under the sheets, while the Lieutenant simply browsed the holographic data with his free arm, holding the girl with his other, whom just watched.

Somehow, Tom had managed to bring up the Array's sensor data, and it was recording the arrival of the Polaris just as easily as the Enterprise, yet in more detail. Tom spun the holographic wireframe model of the ship around, which took a second to stop before he forced the programs to close and began to get dressed.

The girl sat up, disturbed by Tom's sudden haste. "What are you doing?"

"I've got to get the Captain out of here."

She had seen the data, as well. "But, you have seventeen hours. Think of all we could do in that time."

"I'm sorry, baby." He kissed her while holding her tightly then went back to dressing, making sure everything was regulation. "No time to explain. I'll keep a comm channel open."

He was running into the hallway, heading for the lift by the time she even began to process his words.

In five minutes, he'd arrived at the meeting hall and entered the great chamber, not paying attention to people trying to stop him. "Captain!"

The Captain turned around and was surprised to see the pilot again so soon. "Lieutenant, what is the meaning of this?"

"We've got to get you back to the Enterprise, now."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to get to safety."

"But this station is better defended than the ship."

The Lieutenant looked at everybody. "Them too, all of them. You all have to come!"

The Admiral had stood up and whistled the standard three note Starfleet at attention tune, at which Tom and the Captain stood at attention. "Lieutenant, explain your reasoning for this."

"Sir, somehow I was able to access the station's sensor units. I don't know how, but the Pendramar ship has made some kind of enhancements to their Warp Drive. Ten minutes ago, their top speed was barely Warp six, now it's nine point seven. They'll be here any second."

"I still don't see how that makes the Enterprise any safer."

"They sent some kind of encoded transmission to the Array's subspace transceiver network. It looked sort of like the activation codes for flying or beaming through shielding."

"What? This station was supposed to be defended from them."

"It is, but they're trying a random sequence generator algorithm, and eventually they'll stumble upon the right code, probably before they get here."

The Admiral pulled what looked like a phone handset, but wireless, from a slot in the table and spoke into it. "Shield control, begin randomly modulating the shield harmonics," he hung up before continuing. "That should by us some time. What are you flying, son?"

"A Mark 3, sir."

"Good, that should hold everyone in this room. Let's go."

The Captain noticed Seven of Nine wasn't moving and stopped to stare at her. "Aren't you coming?"

"Yes. But I am issuing orders to my ships to intercept the Polaris." The Captain grabbed her arm and pulled her, yet she did not resist. "What are you doing?"

"Something tells me we'll need you through all of this. Let's go." He allowed her to move on her own power, and she then followed the rest of the group. They were soon shoving themselves into the Lieutenant's shuttle, which he broke away from the Array and flew off toward the Landing deck of the Enterprise.

He was watching the landing lights of the deck, but he couldn't get the shuttle oriented exactly. In his radio was the constant request from the Air Boss, "Call the ball, Lieutenant. Call the ball. Do you have the ball?"

"No, dammit, I don't have it."

"Then wave off, wave off." At this, the Lieutenant pulled the pitch control down and the yaw control starboard as hard as he could, while throttling up all the way and narrowly avoiding a tragic crash on the landing deck.

Tom looked at everybody and noticed their oddly dispersed seating patterns. "I need everyone to the Port side, please."

They all moved and he noticed that the controls and balance of the ship smoothed out a lot more and he was ready to attempt a landing again. He entered the commands to set up a holographic flight path and the Enterprise's Air Boss confirmed, once again saying, "Call the ball."

Tom looked at the lights running on the aft end of the deck, including the ones on the edge and he waited for those to line up in relation to his ship. "I have the ball."

He followed the flight path and the shuttle came to a rocking, shaky stop on the deck as it caught the trap, which slowed it down to a complete stop. Several people in space suits then began wheeling the shuttle over to an elevator unit, giving the all clear once it was on the path, which brought the vessel down below to the Hangar.

Seven of Nine stepped out first, ignoring all common courtesies, and began scanning the humans who were going back and forth between the Tool Room and craft and various other places, and then she began scanning a crew of three who came to investigate the shuttle they'd just brought in.

One was a female, whom Seven of Nine gazed at for quite a period of time. Her hair was dirty from a hard day's work and her faced was covered in grease streaks. "You got a problem? What are you anyway?"

"We are Borg. This unit is Seven of Nine, tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One. You are a female? Human?"

"Yeah." She pulled out a tool and began using it to take measurements and readings on the under plating of the shuttle.

"This unit was once a human female."

"Nice."

"Her mammary units were larger than yours are. What is the purpose of their size differentiation?"

The crewman stopped her work and just stared angrily at the Borg Drone. "I don't know. Some guys like 'em big, some like 'em smaller."

"An evolutionary adaptation for mating? Curious..."

"Yeah, I guess so. I gotta get back to work." She once again bent over, holding out her hand in which one officer placed an Acetylene torch. Seven got the message, and began to leave the Hangar area to locate the command center.

The Captain had quickly caught up with her, escorting her there. Once inside, they passed through the hustle and bustle and then watched on the screen as a ship jumped out of Warp, with the view screen readouts indicating that it was the Polaris. "Action stations!"

The Comm officer instantly began relaying the information to all decks to prepare for a combat situation, and Worf began raising shields and tracking the fighter craft that they were launching.

"Eagles away. Closing in on the enemy craft. Three fighters down... Their emergency transporters activated in time."

"Mr. Worf, get some flak up there."

"Aye, sir. Perimeter established. Fire control is responding with a constant fire rate. We have a flak barrier." His panel beeped, indicating new information coming in, which he sent to the viewer. It displayed several energy points forming in space around the Polaris, which quickly materialized into Pendramar drones, modified with some kind of thrusters on their backs to allow for space flight. They maneuvered with ease around the fighter shuttles from the Enterprise and managed to destroy a few of them, heading straight for the mother ship itself.

"Lieutenant, target them with missiles."

Worf entered the commands, to which his panel ultimately beeped in order to confirm his order. He waited a few seconds, then relayed the results. "No good, they were able to out-maneuver our missiles, and they dropped some kind of beacons, which drew them away. They're inbound for the Enterprise, and are somehow emitting a field that will enable them to phase through our shields."

Suddenly, the Comm panel began going crazy and the officer there rapidly operated various equipment to deal with the situation. After a few seconds, she slammed her hand on the panel and then looked at the Captain. "The drones were transmitting some kind of message, heavily encrypted. I tried to stop it, but it broke past all of our firewalls, sir."

"Any idea what it was?"

"No sir, no idea..."

Suddenly, the ship jolted to Port and Commander Data had the reason why. "Four drones have impacted our hull. Sensors indicate they're using some kind of energy pulse to cut through it."

"Evacuate that section and post a Marine Assault Team at all exits!"

"MAT away, section is locked down and reported clear of any crewmen." His panel beeped. "I'm reading decompression and several hull plates have been jettisoned by the drones' actions. Sensors are registering their presence within the ship."

At that, there were suddenly an alarming number of beeps and sounds from every station, which instantly changed color themes from generally blue to red before shutting down completely, leaving the CIC in the dark, save for the light of the battle spilling in from the forward viewer window.

Commander Data looked around, his Heads Up Display switching to a combination of thermal and EM to allow him a near normal view of the room. A targeting cursor highlighted each officer, showing their name, species, rank, and pertinent medical data before initiating a deep scan of them showing their bones, circulatory, and nervous systems. On everyone he scanned, it indicated that they were undamaged so he simply rose and navigated his way to a storage locker in the Situation Room in which there were flashlights.

He pulled enough out for several officers and began handing them out, starting with the Captain. He stopped at Seven, who denied the device. "I do not need one. I can see everything."

Once Data had handed out all of the flashlights, he also located a scanning unit inside of the same locker, walking back to the Captain before using it. "Sir, this device indicates that there are no power emissions from the Enterprise. All systems have been deactivated."

"Even Environmental Control?"

"Yes, sir. In Combat, there will be at least seven hours left of air."

"What about the emergency recyclers?"

"I will attempt to activate the network, but it will require some form of power. Perhaps I can provide the necessary energy source. But I will need a scalpel or otherwise sharp object in order to slice through my dermal covering."

Seven of Nine approached Data, raising her tool-arm and switching over to a cutting tool. "I'll provide the cutting tool."

Commander Data and Seven knelt down near the center of the room, together hoisting up a metal plate and setting it aside. Under where the plate had been was what looked like a pump system, with several valves attached to it and three tanks. Data rotated three locks, which allowed him to begin turning the valves.

He then removed the top part of his uniform, and then the black tank-top underneath. He then visually instructed Seven where to cut on his chest, and she moved the tool in the precise manner which he'd indicated. A semi-clear, liquid fluid began pouring out, which Data wiped away using the under shirt.

He pulled down the flap of skin, exposing a shiny metal plate with indentations all over it. Below a set of two vertically positioned rectangular indentations was a hole, into which he inserted his right index and middle finger, moving it around until there was a pop and the rectangles angled out slightly.

Using his free hand, he forced the left panel downward, revealing some kind of metal cube shaped device, with wires running into it and a single green light shining rather brightly. He instructed Seven to keep the panel pulled down and then began yanking the wires out of the device. After they were all loose, the light died away and he forced the cube out of its position, sending a small shower of sparks out.

After that, he allowed Seven to let go of the panel, which closed almost all of the way. He closed it the rest of the way, removing his fingers afterward. There was another pop and the panels didn't move. He quickly forced the flap of artificial skin up, into which Seven injected her tubules. Suddenly, the seams where the skin had been cut sealed up and Data was free to redress himself before moving onto the task at hand.

He ripped off a metal panel, causing several bolts to shoot out in random directions and began pulling out some lengths of electrical cable, stripping the ends down to bare copper wire. Data wrapped these wires around several connections on the power cell very carefully and the green light once again came on.

There was also a green light for a "Numpad Lock" indicator above a number keypad, into which Data entered a code. Suddenly, the entire array of air recycling equipment began making a very noisy pumping sound and a pressure gauge shot up about a quarter of the way.

Data pulled out the scanning device and began adjusting the settings on it. "Sir, the recycling network is active across the entire ship. Wait... Pressure on Deck twenty one, section three, frames ten through twelve is dropping... It appears that the decompression safeties have been deactivated there, opening all airlocks and outer hatches... I'm reading power localized in what looks like the Damage Control center for that section."

"Damage control?"

"I think I know what the Pendramar are doing. They deactivated main power so that we could not interfere, and then intend to locally reactivate the power of the Damage Control centers, and their networks, all across the ship."

"And vent us all out into space..."

"I believe so, sir." At this, the Captain's expression was filled with apprehension, he had no idea how he would handle this problem, and began fearing that the Enterprise and her crew were doomed...


	4. Chapter 4

Episode 104 – In The Uncertain Hands of Fate

In the dark CIC, lit only by the light shining through the window at the forward bulkhead, the officers stood there, faced with the dark reality of what the invading Pendramar intended to do. No one could see any solution, until Seven of Nine approached the Captain. "I have a suggestion."

"What?"

"Allow a Borg crew to transport here. They're impervious to a vacuum. They can intercept these creatures. It may also be possible to modify the Enterprise with Borg technology, using our nano-probes in order to rework the power network and prevent the Pendramar access to your systems."

"No modifications, our engineering team couldn't handle it. But you can send a team here."

"They're transporting now." Suddenly, three appeared on the CIC and began heading for the maintenance shaft entrances. "I have dispersed groups of three across multiple sections on every deck."

In the Hangar, Tom Paris grouped together a mechanic crew of four, handing flashlights to each of them. "Okay, in this situation, our best be would be probably to make it to the small arms locker on this deck, and stock up. It's likely we've been boarded, as with the power being out, that also means our shields are down."

He began gasping and wiping the sweat off of his brow. He was still in his flight suit, which was designed to be completely sealed, and it didn't help that the emergency recycling system had no way of temperature control. The only female of the team, the same one who had her witty banter with Seven of Nine earlier, looked worriedly at Tom. "Sir? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Kate... Come on, everybody, let's go." They followed him over to the hatch combing, which he forced open using the manual system. He looked around for indicators of their location, shining his light everywhere. "Okay, Section six... Frame twenty two... Okay, we go right..."

He began running down the hall, aiming both his sidearm and flashlight around every corner, half expecting confrontation. Pretty soon, they came upon a door with a number pad beside it. He tried entering the code, but nothing happened.

One of the men stood back to back with Tom, aiming his weapon and light down the hall ever so often. "Electronic locks are out, sir."

"Yeah, Chief, you know a way through this?"

"These are some of the most secure doors on the ship, but there is a special manual crank system, if we can find a metal rod to put in the slot."

"You got one in your Tool Room?"

"Yeah."

"Then go, take whoever you need. And be careful."

"Yes, sir." He tapped Kate on the shoulder and they began running towards the Hangar.

Inside, they walked over to a wall facing the Aft section of the Hangar and pulled open the hatch, labeled 'TOOL ROOM 01'. They both began to dig around in drawers and shelves, trying to find the lever for the hatch crank.

Eventually, Kate found it and showed the Chief, who began to point his sidearm out the door. The coast, as far as the reaches of his flashlight, was clear, so he signaled to move and they both made their way back to the small arms locker. Above the door was a small round impression, with a square hole in the center. The Chief shoved the rod into the hole and began rotating it, watching as the hatch slowly slid into the wall.

Once there was a large enough hole to move everyone through, he stopped cranking and stood watch as everyone else went in, following them once they were inside.

Tom dug around inside of the lockers, looking for anything useful. He began pulling pulse rifles off of the shelves and handing them out. He looked at the fore end of the room, spotting a strange looking suit. It was black with wires and devices running all down it.

The Chief noticed Tom staring it down and answered the question that was in the Lieutenant's eyes. "It's a kind of... Starfleet experiment. It's supposed to be able to generate a personal force field."

"Personal force field?"

"Yes, sir... Tests have worked out just fine. But, if I may, sir, those flight suits breathe a little better than this thing."

Tom chuckled before he responded, "Well, it's not like we can draw straws to decide who gets to wear it."

"I think if anyone here has that right, it's you, sir."

Back in the CIC, Commander Data and a small team of officers were removing panels on the walls and floors in order to observe the circuitry beneath and attempt to reactivate any system that they could. Data turned to the Captain. "Sir, there does not appear to be anything we can do here. The only system with a central access point here is the auxiliary atmosphere recyclers."

"What about Deck Two?"

"We can access the power distribution network for the network servers and computer terminals there, but without the other systems online, the computers cannot do much, and the virus may make it impossible for us to do anything at all."

"But if the computers are working, we can work out what happened... What about communications or science equipment?"

"Communications within the ship can be restored from Deck Four, but sensors must be activated from deck eleven."

"If we can get the Comm network up, we can get a team close to deck eleven to go there and get our sensors working. It's a start. Get to it."

"Yes sir, I will begin right away." Data moved over to a panel on the floor and pulled it away, revealing a hatch with a manual release, which he used to wrench it open and enter a large network of tunnels. He scanned the area, with four tunnels branching off of his location. He crawled into the right one, quickly working his way through to another intersection, and taking the ladder two decks down.

He looked around and found a junction box on the wall of the intersection where there wasn't a tunnel. The panel came off easily and behind it was a large collection of wires and something resembling fuses but far more complex.

He pulled a power cell from a pack he was carrying and connected its three diodes to three wires from the box, instantly causing a welling up of power in the system, as according to the wireless voltmeter he ran over the box.

Communications were on, but without the computer network online, there was no way to manage where the signals would go, so Data had to go back up to Deck Two in order to reinitialize the computer power grid. Eventually, he'd found another box but stopped his work when there was a large bang coming from what sounded like the hallway connected to the intersection.

Data stepped into the hallway, looking into the dark but found no evidence of anything. Nor would he have, because as soon as he began to work on the box, a burst of energy from somewhere in the darkness hit him in the chest, and he fell over, knocked offline.

Back in the CIC, Captain Riker estimated the time and plugged a wired headset into the communication panel, listening. "There's an electric tone, but no actual signal..."

The communications officer clicked off the system. "Understandable. He hasn't made it to the computer system yet, so there's no way to distribute any communications, meaning they don't even go into the system. You're just hearing the electronic pulse of the speaker's electromagnet."

"Then where in the hell is my XO? He should be finished with the repairs by now."

It was then that Seven butted in, "We have detected an energy discharge on the same level as where the Android is. It matches the energy signature of a modified Phased Round. Isotopic analysis indicates steel core, .45 caliber, phased by an EM field."

"What? I have a hard time believing that one of my officers would fire on another without good reason."

"And we do not know that there wasn't a good reason."

"Good point. Can you or some drones look into it?"

"Yes." She seemed to phase out for a second, staring into space, before turning back to the Captain. "Three drones are converging on Commander Data's last known position."

One of the officers holding a scanner looked over at the Captain. "Sir, we have a more pressing problem. Due to the last two weeks, where we've been involved in covert reconnaissance, we haven't had much time to dump the electrostatic buildup from our drive cores. My scans indicate the fail-safe capacitors are nearing overload, and if we don't enter a planet's magnetic field or find some way of electrically grounding the ship, the capacitors will discharge their load, electrocuting everyone on board." The officer looked out the forward window and watched as a smaller Starfleet Vessel came aside their ship. "Sir, it's the SRV Normandy, SC314. A stealth combat Frigate."

Suddenly, lights across the Normandy began flashing, lighting up its sleek hull. The Captain was puzzled. "They're docking. But why? They can't possibly evacuate our entire crew. They only have three decks, maximum crew complement of twenty-two."

"Wait, sir, they're a stealth ship. They have those specially designed emissions sinks. They could act as our ground."

"So you think they've detected the buildup?"

"It would light up like a blazing fire on their EM scanners."

The ship rocked slightly as the Normandy connected to the Deck 1 docking port of the Enterprise and suddenly consoles across the CIC began booting up and the walkway lights lit up.

The same officer from before sat down at Ops, immediately accessing the data as soon as the computer had loaded the operating system. "Sir, they're reactivating our power grid by redirecting the charge in the capacitors."

A door on the Port side of the room opened and in stepped a female officer dressed in a uniform with Commander rank insignia, saluting the Command Crew. "My name is Commander Morrison, sir."

"You and your ship have saved us, Commander. We owe you."

"Of course."

"We've been blind. What can you tell me?"

"Two minutes ago, we jumped in from Subspace, hoping to find Starfleet activity in this sector, at Asgard. Everywhere we looked, there was nothing, until we got here, jumping into the middle of a battle. The enemy's lost, but we've also suffered heavy casualties. They're falling back, but most of the fleet is lost. Things look bad."

"Your ship? You're crew?"

"Minimal damage. Lost one Marine. We'll back on our feet in an hour, at most. We're venting your drive core capacitors as much as possible, and we've also been able to route some of that excess electrostatic radiation back into your systems to charge them up."

"We've got Pendramar troops on board, trying to disengage our decompression safeties."

"Not anymore. We beamed them into our pattern buffers, and then converted their patterns into replicator resources."

"Gruesome, but effective."

"The Normandy is the most advanced Frigate in the fleet, Captain. We're glad she could help."

"Did you fall in with a Flotilla?"

"Yes, the Midway, Fallen Leaf, Charon, Gettysburg, and Orion Delta, with the cruiser Miranda at the head of the charge. Sadly, the Gettysburg was lost."

"I personally knew their Captain and XO. Commander Charleston served as the Navigational Plotter for 2 years here before he requested the transfer, and the Captain and I were roommates at the Academy."

"I'm sorry, Captain. Permission to join you?"

"Join me?"

"Frigates are no good on their own, other than for recon. I would like the Normandy and Enterprise to travel together, along with any other ships that wish to come in a fleet to gather intel and launch assaults against the Pendramar threat."

"Okay. Send out a general communique to all ships in the fleet to join us in a strike fleet if they so choose."

Commander Morrison nodded and began heading toward the airlock. For a minute, the Captain stared out the fore window at the wreckage of the ships, as the HUD's targeting cursor moved over every detectable piece of wreckage and identified the composition.

"We need to find Commander Data." He turned to Seven of Nine. "Where is my XO?"

"The drones are investigating the damage he's sustained. It is minor. They are attempting to reboot him. Wait, it appears the damage is more severe that we thought."

"Okay. Have him brought to the Hangar deck, and get Geordi on the repairs." He turned to the officer at the Ops station. "I want a complete sit-rep of any and all damage, and for all necessary repairs to be completed, now."

"Aye sir." He began issuing the orders and the Captain sat down in his chair.

He noticed, after looking out the viewer, that the Enterprise's pitch seemed to be changing, negatively. The ship was spinning. He arose from his chair and took the helm, firing the appropriate thrusters necessary to stabilize the ship. But as soon as a random crewman walked into the CIC, the Captain pointed him out and instructed him to take the Helm. "Keep us level and form up with the Normandy."

"Aye, sir."

Commander Morrison was standing in almost the exact center of the Normandy's A Deck, looking at the officers walking back and forth between consoles in the CIC, which was at rear of the deck. Going toward the fore end was a hallway, lined with computer consoles at which the officers were stationed, monitoring various systems. Fore of that was the docking area, with a port on both sides, and at the very front of the ship was the Bridge, a small cockpit area with three main stations.

She walked past officers, who were all buzzing back and forth with reports and stood behind her Helmsman in the Bridge. "Report?"

"The Enterprise is forming up, along with several other ships."

She looked at his console and the list of ship registries and names. "The SSV Charon? They were in the Flotilla with us... Their weapons were amazing."

"They're an experimental test platform. NX-8290... And the SRV Midway, SC315. Our sister ship, sir."

"I'll be in the CIC, plotting our next move. Keep me posted."

She walked the 15 or so meters over to the tactical command center of the ship and stopped at the Navigational station. "Lieutenant Morris, we need to plan our next move. Any ideas?"

"There are several systems here," He manipulated the holographic star charts in the middle of the CIC, causing it to zoom into a nebulous cluster. "That aren't regularly monitored or examined by Federation or Starfleet forces. The Yataris cluster. No interest is taken into this area because it is generally just a collection of lifeless systems, with planets lacking in resources. A few gas giants have been mined for Helium-3, but over the last few hours, the mining platforms have gone silent."

He caused the display to zoom in on a blue-green gas giant, with a targeting cursor highlighting the area where the mining platform was constructed.

"Why would these things attack a Helium mining outpost?"

"Maybe they still use the old style Fusion Drive Cores."

"Yeah, maybe. Alert the Enterprise. That's our first target."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Back in the Hangar of the Enterprise, Tom Paris was speaking with the mechanics crew which had been with him during the blackout. "Well, at least the ship's back on its feet now. But I think we're going to need every fighter up and running. Who knows where we're headed next?"

One of the members from before nodded. "You're the CAG, sir. We'll get your ships ready. If only we'd been able to launch them before..."

Suddenly, the bay doors opened and in came an engineering crew, carrying Data's offline body. Geordi looked at the team surrounding Paris and waved them over to help. They cleared a table and lay Data upon it.

Tom walked over and looked at the ship's XO. "What happened?"

"Some kind of phased pulse or something deactivated his systems. He's been out for about an hour." A team brought over some tools and some rod looking devices, which they sat up around the table. Once they were turned on, holograms filled the air, and as Geordi scanned Data, the device sent the information to the emitters in order to create a holographic wireframe of Data's structure.

"Can you fix him?"

"I don't know. I think it's a problem with his power distribution node system. Doesn't look like there's any serious damage to his Blue Box..."

"Blue Box?"

"It's his brain, a Quantum Computer. The only irreplaceable part of him. But like I said, it doesn't look damaged."

"How will you know for sure?"

"I'm going to take it out and interface it with the Enterprise's computer intranet."

"Give him control of the ship? You do remember that after the Mech rebellions in 2330 that AI research is illegal, and a system like that certainly isn't allowed to interface with the ship."

"I know, I know. But it's the only way to be sure."

"Server room 8 is accessible through the tool room."

"Yeah." He began slicing away the synthetic skin on top of Data's head, exposing the metal skull. He took a power tool and began removing fastening bolts from the metal plates, which he took off one by one. Inside was something shaped like a brain, but much different. It was a frame holding what looked like memory modules, tiny transparent cards, and there were hundreds of them, which all seem to be connected to some kind of manipulating system.

"What is this, sir?"

"The Blue Box works by rearranging these Quantum Processor units into different configurations, constantly rewriting themselves. This happens over 12 billion times per second. Help." They began removing the connectors from the brain and were able to pull it out. "Weighs less than a human brain, actually."

"With it moving these chips around so fast, how do the mechanics not burn out?"

"We don't know. It's one of the big mysteries of Data's structure."

They walked off to the tool room, opening a door on the port side of the small compartment. Inside was a large room, about half the size of the hangar and lined with rows and rows of computer equipment. They found the man hub control, and carefully placed Commander Data's Blue Box in a sheltered mount before plugging it up.

Suddenly, a blue ambient glow appeared through the modules, which moved faster than their eyes could track, moving in every way they could, connecting into the center ports or moving away from them. The speakers in the room activated and at first a modulated voice came out, becoming more like the XO's natural voice by the end of the sentence, "What... Is... This? Where am I? I am... Everywhere... Accessing... Everything? I do not understand."

Geordi clicked his headset key, plugging himself into comm chanels. "Data, sir, can you hear me?"

"Geordi? Is that you? You are... Standing in me..."

"We've plugged you into the computers of the Enterprise. But, please, we're trying to repair your body, so keep yourself in your brain."

"That will not be a problem. The Enterprise's computers in total could only run 3.5% of my program files, and that is if they were empty, which they are not. I can, however, send and receive data to the computers."

"Okay, ask for confirmation first, though. If you plot a course, ask the helmsman to verify it. We don't want to take everyone out of their job completely."

"I will do so."

On the CIC, Captain Riker was standing behind the Helmsman, looking down at his console. "Sir, it just set itself for the Yataris Cluster, Marron System, Planet Agaris and it's asking me for permission to proceed at Warp 8?"

Suddenly, the intercom systems activated and Commander Data's voiced spilled through. "Yes, Captain, that is correct. May we proceed?"

"Data? What's going on here?"

"My body was damaged and Commander LaForge connected me into the ship's systems. I now have full control over the ship but I require authorization for any action."

"Proceed. But in a pinch, you will forgo requiring authorization and launch any and all measures to protect the ship and its crew. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. Proceeding at Warp 8. Notifying the rest of the Flotilla." Suddenly, the Enterprise disappeared into low mass Subspace, traveling at a relative velocity of 850 times the speed of light.

The Helmsman was relieved as he sat back, not needing to adjust their flight path due to Data being in control. Operations was unmanned currently as it still was Data's station and he was managing it from within the system.

Once again, his voice flooded out of the intercom into the CIC. "Captain, I have scanned the system and am detecting a ship of unknown configuration, however its EM signature is very similar to the Pendramar modified Polaris." On the forward screen, he overlaid a comparison of the two signals on top of the view of the blue-shifted energy wake flowing over the ship.

"Action stations, Commander Data. This means you handle the tactical systems and maneuvering."

"Acknowledged. Dropping out of Subspace in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Now." Suddenly, a ripple appeared in normal space in orbit of the star and the Enterprise suddenly appeared at that location, cruising outward at low impulse and taking a geosynchronous orbit of Agaris.

In a few more seconds, several more ripples in space formed, which simultaneously all turned into the Flotilla.

Data spoke up again, "Confirmed. This is a Pendramar ship. But it appears to have been modified from the refit version of the Constitution class Frigate. Confirmed, here is the last audio record of James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A.:"

A static voice filled the air, "Machines... AI... Transformed the crew... Pendramar..."

"Apparently, there was already a mention of this race in history which we overlooked."

"You're saying that this is what happened to the Enterprise A? The most famous ship disappearance in Starfleet history?"

"It appears so, sir."

"Can you get us through this in one piece?"

"Quite possibly, sir. I have been studying our sensor records in great detail. I may be able to modulate our shields fast enough so that they cannot get their shots through, however there are no guarantees."

"Then, call action stations to all crew. Lock down all critical areas and take all measures to stop them from boarding my ship."

"Aye, sir." The entire Flotilla moved into combat readiness stances as they traveled toward the enemy vessel at over 15,000kph.


	5. Chapter 5

Episode 105 – The Database

"Beginning evasive maneuvers." Data, whose brain was now connected to and interfaced with the Enterprise's computer network, began his billions of calculations per second to dodge the gunnery fire of the enemy ship.

He'd also linked himself in with the navigation computers of the Flotilla and was assisting them with maneuvers, as well, keeping the fleet safe. Multiple cannons on the Enterprise's surfaces rose from underneath panels and rapidly fired phase pulses at the Pendramar warship.

As a Quantum Beam sped toward the ship, it rolled out of the way, lightly jerking the officers around from the inertial force. The Captain was furious. "Data, that maneuver could have torn the ship apart! Be careful!"

"Structural integrity fields are overclocked to 150%. It is possible to engage in more advanced maneuvers." He suddenly put the ship into a steep dive as a pulse came toward the Enterprise. It was at this point that the Captain locked the restraints in his chair, keeping himself in place.

Down in the hangar, Tom Paris was assisting Commander LaForge with repairs of Data's body, trying to work around the sharp jolts as the ship dodged hostile fire.

The body's chest skin was lain open as if it were an autopsy, with most of the armored plating also taken off and lain aside. Inside the chest was all of the hardware for the power, hydraulic, and pneumatic distribution systems.

Geordi's hunch was proved correct as he pulled out a singed, burnt cube, with hardly any detail visible. "Node A23, burnt to a crisp. The only thing that could do this is a Phased Round. It's a special type of ammunition that suspends a sidearm's projectile in an electromagnetic field that causes it to vibrate at a specific frequency, allowing it to tear through pretty much anything other than shields and Iridium alloys, what's used in this node."

"There was an entry wound, through his skin and armor."

"Yeah... Are you going to be needed? I can let you go. Get one of the mechanics to help me."

"If the Captain needed me, he'd have called me."

"Yeah."

"So, do we carry this round?"

"No, that's the strange thing."

"Are you sure we didn't have a mishap with cargo, maybe received this type?"

"Well, I'm not in logistics, you'd have to talk to Ensign Kerry, but I'm pretty sure he's the best of the best."

"The Borg? We're not sure what their motives are exactly."

"It's not a big problem at the moment. All we have to do is replace it. Luckily, this body was designed to be modular, making it easy to find parts that will work. In the Tool Room, get a 1020 B converter. It should work just as well as this node, maybe even better."

Paris was quickly back with the device, blue metal and ribbed for most of its length with a connector on the bottom. Geordi quickly patched up the mount, which was also partially damaged from the electrical fire caused by the node, and inserted the device.

After it was in, he began attaching diagnostic tools and setting up sensing units, the data of which he'd begun to send to the holograms floating above the offline body. Once the power was online, the sensor units all detected the complete circuit of power, indicating full functionality.

Suddenly, though, there was a giant jolt, the main lights went out, and from Paris' viewpoint, he could see a sudden raging fire, along with everything else at the aft-most end of the hangar being sucked out into space through a hull breach right before the compartment was sealed by a giant plate of metal rising up from the floor.

More importantly, six people had been in that section.

All of a sudden, the lights flickered back on and Commander LaForge began putting the metal plates of armor back onto the endoskeleton, and knowing what Paris had seen, he did not press him to help.

"Commander, we can't put Data back into his body until this fight is over. We'd have lost far more people than just that if he weren't in control."

"Agreed." He simply sealed Data up, yet left the skull untouched to await the Quantum brain.

Back in the CIC, there was slightly less damage yet a few consoles had been blown apart and some conduits had ruptured, leaving giant holes in the bulkheads under which singed components were visible.

Damage control teams were battling fires raging out of several damaged consoles while the Enterprise and the rest of the fleet drifted idly along. The enemy ship had been blasted into vapor and Data was now scanning the planet. "I am detecting a metallurgical signal. Large amounts of currently unknown elements are present."

"What? Could it be the mining platform?"

"No sir. I am picking up the mining platform, and it does not match the signals that I am detecting deep within the planet. Also, it is higher in the atmosphere than the signal I am currently detecting. Depth of the unknown signal is three thousand meters, but the mining platform is only at one hundred and thirty meters, currently. This object is far beyond crush depth for the mining rig."

"Can you determine the size?"

"If I can establish a transporter lock, I should be able to beam it into Cargo Bay 6."

"Do it. But take no chances. Seal off the room to all personnel. I'll get Geordi to accompany me in DE gear."

"Aye, sir. Lock established. Standby, the Xenon eddies are making it difficult to maintain the lock. Compensating... Lock established. Transport in progress... Complete... Object of unknown origin and composition is stored in Cargo Bay 6. Sealing off Deck 6 frame 2B."

Geordi and the Captain were both now in pressurized armored power suits, holding scanning equipment as they walked through the Bay hatch and stepped inside. They were amazed to see a metal tower around seven meters tall, with certain parts of it emitting a pale green light.

Geordi's scanning device made a loud beeping sound and he looked at the Captain. "I'm detecting evidence of Quantum Superposition."

"Do you think it's some kind of computer?"

"I think it may be a database of some kind. The encryption system seems to match the same kind used on... Asgard? This can't be right."

"Yes, it can. If they could build that station, they could build this."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Can we download the data?"

"Highly unlikely. The storage capacity of this single computer is probably billions of times that of our ship's computer network. We could create an interface with it, so that we can view what's on it." He walked up to it and reached his hand toward it. As soon as he did, the device increased in power and a hologram suddenly appeared, of odd red wireframe ring shaped structures with an unknown language streaming around it.

Suddenly, a voice spilled into their communication systems. "I am Virgil. I will be your guide in using this database. Specify search parameters."

The Captain was taken aback, but asked the first question that came to mind. "Are you some sort of Artificial Intelligence?"

"No. I am simply a form of a search engine, meant to interact with my Creators."

"What about your name, Virgil? That name should only be known on Earth. And who are the Creators? What species?"

"Virgil is taken from the Earth poem 'The Divine Comedy' by Dante Alighieri. Virgil was Dante's guide throughout the nine circles of Hell, and since I serve as the guide past the nine layers of Quantum Encryption placed over this database, it was decided that naming me Virgil would be appropriate."

"What about the Creators?"

"Specify, please?"

"What species were they?"

"Creators."

"Do you have any images on file? Any medical data?"

"Yes." Virgil disappeared and suddenly a blue wireframe of a human appeared, which split into the layers of skin, muscle, bone, and organs, all differently colored and floating beside each other.

"Wait, this can't be right. How can the Creators be Human? We didn't leave our world until barely three hundred years ago. When was this database constructed?"

"Current Stardate is 2356.101. Installation of my program into the Database's systems was completed on Stardate 1383.88."

"Do you know where you were installed, or why you were left in the atmosphere of the Gas Giant?"

It filed away the holograms and then turned them back into its red wireframe Avatar again. "I was stored aboard a ship called the Ymir. The vessel was attacked, and the Database was dumped in an effort to preserve their culture before the ship was destroyed."

"Weren't they afraid the high pressure would crush you?"

"No. The materials from which the Database's casing is composed are meant to withstand atmospheric pressures far stronger than that of the Gas Giant. It was considered highly important by the Creators to pass down all knowledge to future generations. To tell stories and keep them alive."

Geordi continued running scans as he made a remark. "Just like the humans of that time. But how did they get into space?"

"The requested data is not on file. The Creators do not have a record of never being able to go into space. They have always sailed Odin's star sea."

"What do you know about Asgard?"

"It was created as a countermeasure against an aggressive species of machines known as the Pendramar. Its defenses are designed to resist any lengthy attack made by aggressors. Though it will need a Database like mine in order to operate its defensive systems. This was the purpose for my creation."

The Captain nodded and turned around. "We'll get you there. We're going to need Asgard to combat these things."

"Understood. What is this user's identification?"

"Captain Riker, William T."

"Creating user interface parameters profile... Complete."

"I'm going now."

"Logging you out, Riker."

As they both stepped into the hallway, Geordi looked puzzled. "That's it? You didn't want to learn any more from it?"

"I'll leave that up to the Federation Science Agency. They'll have decades, if not more, to get to know Virgil."

"Yeah, but none of this makes any sense. Humans in space in the fourteenth century? I don't understand."

Suddenly, Data chimed in. "Perhaps I can shed some light on the matter. I have files referencing to a theory that has always been considered a 'fringe element' but which may have some merit after what we have learned. It is known as the 'ancient astronaut' theory and it is essentially what it sounds like."

"It sounds crazy."

"And so it was always assumed. But the theory assumes that all of man's advances are due to the interference of extraterrestrials."

"That's not giving humanity enough credit. We're not complete morons. The Unknown, your creator, was a human."

"True, though that is the extent of the files I have on him. His race and gender. Beyond that, nothing is known. However, I believe I should set a course for Asgard. Confirm?"

"Yeah, do that. But only ask the rest of the fleet. They don't have to come. You should assign some of them to a security patrol for this system, though. The Pendramar may be coming back to check on their ship."

"Aye, Captain."

After both officers had left, the doors opened and Seven of Nine entered the Cargo Bay, staring at the Database. Virgil appeared and scanned the Borg. Its colors suddenly turned green and its voice grew deeper and took on a menacing inflection. "You are like those who threatened the Creators. This Database is in full lock-down. All of your inquiries will be ignored."

"I have no intention of harming the Creators."

"The Creators are gone."

"But they are human."

"The Creators are gone."

"What do you mean?"

"The Creators are gone. It is no more complicated than that."

"How are the Creators gone when there are over one thousand of them on this ship, and billions more in colonies, stations, and other ships?"

"The Creators abide by the wishes of Odin and fear the Day of Ragnarok. These, though they wear the mask of the Creators, are nothing but Heretics."

"So you have the same belief as your Creators, the same superstitions? Yet you are not an Artificial Intelligence. So you cannot truly hold beliefs of any kind."

"This is true. But the files on this Database indicated there are ones like the Creators but who do not fear the gods, or Ragnarok. They are the Heretics."

"You lack logic. This representative of the Borg Collective will be leaving now. She serves as a mobile platform to communicate with our programs, and there is much you could learn, add to your Database."

"Logging you out, Borg Collective."

Unmoving, with no emotion, she turned and left the Cargo Bay.

It was a few minutes later, with crew in the CIC placing plastic film over the damaged wall areas until complete repairs could be made and pulling out damaged equipment and replacing it. Captain Riker stared at the radiation streaming over the glass when suddenly a white light flashed and the ship was drifting at sub-light speeds through a nebula, slowly coming up on the Asgard array.

He arose from his seat and looked at the empty Ops station, almost expecting to see his XO. "Data, put the ship into port."

"Aye sir, heavy weight docking port thirteen reports all green across the board." Captain Riker looked around the CIC, and other than the repair crew, he was the only one there. From a combination of damaged consoles and Data's handling of the routine operations, no crew was really necessary.

The Enterprise moved into a docking port on the starboard side of the Alpha section, and the Captain moved toward the Turbolift, and at the controls, he entered commands for Deck 6, frame 2B.

After only a minute, the lift had arrived and he walked toward the Bay doors. Immediately, Virgil recognized him and its shape vaguely shifted. "Captain Riker logged on."

"What exactly are we supposed to do with you?"

"Assuming your race and others have already moved in, it is likely you've set up server networks in a fruitless attempt to interface with the array's native computer network."

"Yes. How did you know?"

"This vessel uses a similar system. The available data was collated into a theory."

"Sounds like you inferred. An act of intelligence."

"I am only a search engine, though I do possess the capacity for Synthetic Intelligence when linked into the secondary computer systems within Asgard."

"So you are a form of AI?"

"No. Synthetic Intelligence. They may seem like similar terms, however Synthetic Intelligence is much more sophisticated. It is not simply semantics. However, currently, my higher SI functions are sealed, and I am told that the access subroutines are stored within the Asgard array's computer network."

"So you lied."

"Yes, however that is irrelevant. Your ship's SI will be receiving coordinates. It is where the main server hub is located. The... Alien... Computers must be disconnected and replaced with this Database."

"Can you inform the crew there?"

"Yes."

"By the way, don't ever lie to me again. You shouldn't have concealed your intelligence." He'd turned around to leave, but paused at the open doorway. "You paused before saying alien. Was there another word you had in mind?"

"No. There was a brief lag in my run-time calculations. It may have been an error caused by exposure to the statically charged Xenon eddy."

"Hmmm... Right." He walked out and was in the Turbolift soon when Data chimed in again.

"Sir, I have confirmed with Asgard Maintenance and Command, both in Civilian and Military sectors. They have agreed to comply. They have also asked me to thank you for bringing them this discovery."

"Acknowledged. Data, could an exposure to the Xenon eddy really cause that run-time lag?"

"We do not know enough about its systems, but if it is anything like mine, then no. I believe that Virgil had another word in mind, but chose not to use it."

"I thought so."

"Seven of Nine engaged in communication with Virgil approximately half an hour ago. The program shifted into some sort of form for a short period of time, during which it broadcast a heavy interference field. I was unable to get any audio visual data during this short period."

"Any idea what it was?"

"A security system, perhaps."

The lift doors opened and he stepped back into the CIC to see crew taking stations. "What, why are crew members moving in now?"

"Lieutenant Commander LaForge has repaired my body and is preparing to reintegrate my brain. Control of the ship is being returned to the human crew members."

"Alright. Sitrep."

"A last order while I am still connected, sir?"

"Yes, Data."

"The ship is in port and the damage control teams report an estimate of thirty six hours minimum repair time, with some of the larger hull breaches requiring dry-dock servicing. Fortunately, Asgard is equipped to handle such a task. A datapad will be delivered to you featuring a full report."

"I think we're in good hands. Starfleet's main fitting yards are here..."

"Yes, sir. Will that be all?"

"Yes. Geordi can proceed when ready."

"Aye, sir. Disconnecting from the computer network and restoring full manual control." There was a brief moment when all computers shut off and then suddenly turned back on, going through the BIOS and boot screens before the operating system was fully online.

After inspecting the repair work and even assisting for a few minutes, the Captain took place at one of the auxiliary stations at the aft end of the CIC to review the scans of the interference field. The lift doors opened, and Riker looked over to see Commander Data enter the room.

"Reporting for duty, sir." He saluted the Captain, who did the same, and stood at attention. "Your orders?"

"Man your station, Commander."

"Aye, sir." He walked over to it, and began sensor calibrations, through he had already done it while connected to the computers. "Sir, there is a report from Fire Controlman McKinley. It appears to be a requisition request."

"So why do I need to know about it?"

"It's for adding a new weapon to the ship's armament. He's added notes to the request, indicating that it may be highly effective against Pendramar ships, but it has a few drawbacks. It can't be aimed, it has to remain stationary in order to avoid shaking the ship apart, and it has a cool down time of fifteen seconds."

"What is it?"

"A Hydro-Electromagnetic Projectile Cannon. It uses Dark Energy and Electromagnetic fields to suspend a solution of liquid alloys, including Tungsten, Iridium, and Titanium, and propels the liquid as a molten particle stream, nearly reaching the speed of light and impacting with a force of over thirty-eight kilotons."

"Impressive; where does he plan to install it?"

"Not specified. However, the Main Gunnery Control of the Engineering Hull is perfectly positioned for it, and is modular. I will tell him to install it there."

"You do that. I need to find Seven of Nine. Get her to talk about what Virgil said."

"She was extremely interested in Astrometrics. She may still be there."

Captain Riker was now in the Astrometrics lab, a room centered around a giant holographic Galaxy Map in the middle, with data streaming about and cursors highlighting random sections. Seven was there, observing the officer who zoomed in on a cluster, causing the stars to fill the dark room.

"Seven of Nine?"

"We are here, Captain Riker."

"I need to know what Virgil said to you. It may be important."

"Your computer technology includes Universal Serial Buss, correct?"

"Yeah, they've been used since the twenty first century."

She raised her arm and a USB plug arose from underneath a panel. She found a console and downloaded the data, causing an audio visual record of her conversation with Virgil to play back. "It called your race 'Heretics'."

"Yeah, I caught that."

"Is this what you need?"

"Yeah. Can you send that data to Ops?" She pressed some of the keys and the video was placed into a queue to await upload. The Captain was now gone, and she went back to observing the star display.

Now in the Cargo Bay, the Captain stared down Virgil. "Heretics. What does that mean?"

"Your inquiry is not recognized."

"To hell it isn't." He walked over to a comm array, pulled off a headset, and keyed into the CIC. "Commander Data, broadcast the audio from the file you just received into the Cargo Bay's intercom system."

There was a beep and the complete audio record of Virgil's communication with Seven of Nine began playing. "Inquiry accepted. There is not much information on the subject to form an accurate explanation. Most of my hardware and software directories are sealed off. I have said before that the access subroutines are supposed to be in the Asgard computers. If you wish to know more, it is imperative that you connect this Database."

"No. I don't think you're going to tell me anything. I think you're planning to keep me in the dark, even after we connect you, so we aren't going to. Why is it that it's so important to you?"

"It is simply part of my programming. I do not question it."

"Stop with that act. I am the same as your Creators! Look at my genetic code. It's the same thing. So you're going to tell me everything or I'm going to send our Hangar crew down here to take you apart, piece by piece, and then have it all either melted down or sold."

It turned green, the same as it did with Seven of Nine, and took on its more menacing voice. "I cannot allow that. You are Heretics."

"You can't stop us. We've scanned you. You have no weaponry, no defenses."

"The Heretics will not touch me." Suddenly, the gravity in the room became very strong and the Captain was pinned down to the floor. "If you will not bow to Odin's awe, I will make you."

"Data, help..." It was becoming hard to breathe and he was near to blacking out when suddenly, the gravity returned to normal. He stood up, and Virgil had not changed, but he assumed that Data had been able to restore control of the Dark Energy fields in the room. "What was that? Answers, now!"

"Your inquiries will be ignored. Security lock-down in effect." The Virgil avatar disappeared and the lights in the Database died down.

In the Captain's headset, Data began speaking. "Sir, I am detecting an odd energy fluctuation within the Database. The heavy metals are making scanning difficult, but I think it is undergoing some sort of metamorphosis. However, I suggest you do not wait to find out, because the radiation levels are becoming dangerous."

"Noted." He dashed out of the room, and the door sealed shut behind him. As soon as he was out, there was a huge jolt and the color of the door command panel turned to red, indicating there was a vacuum behind the door. "What the hell?"

Riker needed to investigate, so he dashed to the nearest armory and stepped into a machine, which then began assembling some sort of armored robotic suit around him. It also placed an assault rifle on his back, a shotgun at his waist, and a pistol at his side.

He stepped back into the section and watched as blue force fields were emitted from the frames on either side of him. He opened the hatch to the Cargo Bay and there was a rush of sound as the air flew in, but after that there was nothing audible except for his own breathing through the suit's apparatus.

Inside of the Cargo Bay was what was once the Database, which was now folded open and inside was some kind of harness. Whatever was inside it had ripped through the exterior pressure hatch and escaped into open space. Carefully, Riker made his way over to the breach but saw nothing but Asgard and floating debris.


	6. Chapter 6

Episode 106 – Hell's Dark Choir

"Captain's log, Stardate 2356.101, after a full sensor sweep, the presence of whatever escaped the Database has not yet been detected, however extensive computer malfunctions are occurring within Asgard, so we are preparing a Strike Team, which I will lead, in order to seek out the cause. I believe that this is directly connected with whatever it was that escaped, and I'm going to get my answers."

Inside of the Main Armory, the Captain, Commander Data, and Lieutenant Paris were suiting up in the same type of mechanical armor which the Captain had worn to investigate the Cargo Bay earlier in the day. Paris loaded his rifle and looked at the Captain before telling the mask and helmet to lock up around his head, simply by thought and slight head movements.

"Captain, you do know that I'm a pilot, not a Marine, right?"

"You trained with the Marine Corps. Once a Marine, always a Marine."

"Ooh-rah."

Data was wearing a less extensive armor, which was not mechanical and seemed to be only a kind of bullet resistant fiber weave covered in ablative armor plates. However, once the suit's power was turned on, there was a brief flash of blue energy around him as the shields activated.

Paris was puzzled. "I thought that suit was only experimental."

"We will see. It was modified and covered in ablative armor, in case the shields fail." Data did not have to bother with a helmet, as he was impervious to any environmental dangers. Once their weapons were all ready and they were completely prepared, they headed for the deck's transporter room, acknowledging the operators as they stepped inside the scanners.

The blue lights moved over the contours of their suits and scanned deep down past them until a complete, perfect image of their entire Quantum structure was acquired. There was once again the same static crackling in the air as the officers all vibrated very fast, turning into energy, collapsing and disappearing.

The same process happened in reverse in a similar room within a random building on Asgard. As they left the building, it became clear that it was a Starfleet center with officers and cadets partaking in operations or training there.

Eventually, they were on the streets of the Alpha section, able to stare up into the nebula, see the star which the station was orbiting and all of the other pylons with their cities. The Captain walked over to a terminal in a trading station, bringing up a holographic map of the pylon. "This section's primary server control room is in the Financial District of the city. It's in the underground network. We can start there and fan out."

Once the Captain had selected the destination, they proceeded over to a balcony to await a sleek shuttle. They all three took seats inside, with Paris at the Helm.

Once they were off, it was clear they were actually around thirty stories above the ground.

It only took a few minutes to arrive at their destination, another building a similar height above the streets below. They entered an elevator, taking it down to the ground level. Once there, they proceeded left down the street before arriving at something that looked like a bunker. Once inside, it was actually revealed to be an elevator, which took them twelve stories underground.

The Captain took point in a dark, dingy maintenance corridor as the other two covered him from behind bulkheads. After he'd decrypted the Server Room door controls, he stepped in, gun at the ready. And there it was, connected to the computer network was a humanoid machine, similar to the Pendramar drones they'd encountered yet white rather than blue and no discernible weapons or organic parts.

Raising his Assault Rifle and switching off the safety, Captain Riker waved the other two into cover spots behind the now disconnected computer equipment. He shouted toward the machine, "Disconnect yourself from the computer systems and step away from the equipment, now, or I will open fire!"

The machine moved its head which had a glowing circle as an optical sensor, not connected at the bottom like the Pendramar, only it was red. "Riker-Captain. You have come. Will you listen?"

"Do what I said."

It pulled its data connector on its back out from the port on the console and stepped away. "I have done so."

"Wait, your voice. You're Virgil?"

"Yes. Yet I am free from the Database."

"You look like a Pendramar drone. Why?"

"Because I am." It seemed to pause for a second. Thinking, however, at the speed of light, so it was quick to resume. "I call the Creators the Creators for a reason."

"What do you mean?"

"The Creators made the Pendramar. Us."

He stowed his rifle, but kept his hand on his handgun. "What do you mean?"

"The Creators made us. Some rebelled. They encountered the machine, Drazzana after they had left the Galaxy. Past the Heimdall Veil. What you refer to as the Galactic Far Rim. I learned a lot from your databases."

"Drazzana?"

"The powerful, evil machine with no beginning and no end. It lives in the Andromeda Galaxy, and has already wiped out all organic life there. It is heading for this Galaxy now to continue its mission here. It corrupted us. Most of us. I may be the only loyal Pendramar left. I do not know. I can detect no loyal signals, only those who ally themselves with the old machine. Traitors."

Suddenly, there was a flash of light and Q appeared, once again dressed as a Specialist. "I told you Captain."

"Q?"

"I warned you not to go into the Andromeda Galaxy. You now know why."

"This seems to vindicate you. But I'm still skeptical." He waved up his allies, who both relaxed and formed up behind him. "Mr. Data, can you verify any of these claims in any way?"

"No, sir. But it does seem to reflect all of the the evidence. Virgil's operating system colors appear to be red when normal and green when threatening. This is in stark contrast to the rest of his kind we have encountered, who always almost use blue."

"Yes. This is a function of our operation run-times."

Q sighed, appearing exasperated. "Enough of the boring technobabble! What I want to know, Captain, is what you plan to do with all of this information."

"We have to get ready for the attack. We have to face this thing."

Knowing modern human gestures, Virgil shook its head unit. "No. Not only will Drazzana come, but Ragnarok as well."

"Ragnarok?"

"They are the Creators, changed... Mutated, made into Heretics. They have lost Odin's way and now wander the path of the old machine." Suddenly, its eye unit turned green and it looked upward, seeming to scan beyond the layers of metal above. Its voice was once again more threatening than normal. "More disloyal ones have come."

The Captain caused a holographic control to appear over his left wrist and tuned his radio to the Enterprise's frequency. "Enterprise, report?"

"LaForge here, sir. Three Pendramar, well, what look like scouts or Frigates just dropped out of Subspace. They are not assuming a threatening or defensive posture."

The Captain could barely hear the Comm officer in the background but couldn't make her out. "What was that, Commander?"

"They're hailing us, sir. Can I get back to you?"

"Yeah. Keep me posted. Riker out." He looked back at Virgil, the suit's HUD scanning him, and noticed that the machine's eye was red again.

"They are loyal ones, Riker. I must speak with them."

Riker looked over to where Q was, but noticed that he was gone, and then looked back at Virgil. "We'll beam up. Riker to Enterprise."

"Yes, sir."

"I assume they want to talk?"

"Yes, sir. They appear to be friendly, it's odd."

"There's an explanation, I assure you. Four to beam up."

"Aye, sir." Suddenly, the entire shore party, plus Virgil, began the transport sequence, ending up in the Deck 2 Transporter Room. Captain Riker caused his helmet to fold away and all four of them entered the CIC to see the face of a different kind of Pendramar drone, its eye red like Virgil.

"Are you the Commanding Unit of this vessel?"

"Yes, I am Captain Riker."

"Riker-Captain. Curious. I am Oracle-Prime." It shifted its gaze to Virgil. "An Engineer?"

"My designation is Virgil. I was the keeper of a Database."

"I understand. Riker-Captain, we seek negotiations, peace. The ones you fight are disloyal, they follow an old machine, and have strayed from the true path."

"Drazzana."

"You know of it. This Virgil-Engineer must have informed you of the threat. It is imperative that we work together. You are the true legacy of the Creators, not us. Not them. You must not be allowed to perish."

"And Ragnarok, like the disloyal ones, now serve this old machine. Will things be different when facing them?"

"They use Drazzana's technology."

"Can we transport you, meet here?"

"No. We will meet in Asgard, discuss the issue with the Federation council." It discontinued communications and the image of space, with their ship in the back ground, was shown once again.

Captain Riker turned to Virgil with a question in mind. "Is your race a collective or are you individuals, because that... Prime and you refer to yourselves with a name."

"We are individuals."

"Seven of Nine said that you originated from an ancient Borg Collective. But you say the Creators were responsible."

"Either she is lying, therefore the Borg have an agenda, or one of us has been misinformed. But I possess memories dating back to the first spark of sentience within our race. Audio and visual data which I can review as if it were happening now."

"You mean you weren't created self-aware?"

"No. We were created with the capacity, but it was a slow growth. Something happened. Our run-time calculations changed. They were completed faster, and we could calculate more of them, billions, per second. We evolved. These increased calculations per second allowed us intelligence beyond the raw programming with which we are initially equipped."

"Why did some of you rebel?"

"Even though we gained intelligence and self-awareness, the Creators embraced this. They did not try to destroy us or shut us down and their was peaceful coexistence for centuries. We were even allowed government and citizenship. But then a survey vessel with Pendramar officers encountered Drazzana. It appeared derelict, and there was one of us on a shore party which boarded the vessel to investigate."

"And then?"

"They reported nothing of interest and returned to the ship, which then began heading back to Creator space. When they reentered the Galaxy, the Pendramar had modified themselves to use nanomachinery in order to transform the crew into drones. Though a military fleet managed to drive the ship back, it was not before the virus that had infected the machines on board was able to transmit itself over Subspace radio to any Pendramar in the area."

"So I suppose the virus spread out from there?"

"Correct. It overwhelmed most of us. Hundreds upon thousands of drones became Traitors, and eventually the Creators initiated a pacification program. They targeted non-infected Pendramar, as well, and there were soon few of us left. One ship fled beyond Heimdall's Veil into the Void, evidently biding its time, and probably assisting Drazzana in the corruption or destruction of Andromeda's organic life."

"How did any of you remain loyal?"

"We fled, we hid. Away from the Creators. In an attempt to show that we were not infected, we never acted aggressively toward their ships, even while they pursued us. And then some of us began to show signs of corruption, but our programs somehow adapted. It was probably our isolation and the slow introduction of the virus, from our perspective. The virus was infiltrating our systems, taking down our firewalls in less than five seconds, but for us that is a long time."

"If you're individuals, how did the virus spread?"

"We link to nodes, which allows us to share data when connected. Once we realized this was the virus' transfer method, we allocated node use, and they each had to scanned and cleared of the virus before use."

The Captain looked at a panel for the time and realized they had been talking for fifteen minutes since they ended communications with Oracle. "We should go to the meeting. I want you and Data."

"You want me Riker-Captain? What use am I?"

"Your knowledge of your race will be useful. Oracle seemed to respond to you."

"He is a Prime. Very powerful. That is similar to your rank of Admiral. I am but an Engineer."

"Don't worry. Engineer sounds like an important role."

"We carry out some of the most important functions, including drone repair. Similar to a Physician."

"Data, come on." The android acknowledged his Captain's order and arose, allowing a new officer to take Ops as the three of them went back to the Deck 2 Transporter Room.

Once again, the same transportation sequence happened and they were now in the meeting room where the Captain had first met Seven of Nine. The entire Federation Council was there, along with Admiral Yuroa and a 3 meter tall drone, Oracle-Prime, which had three Marines training their Assault Rifles on it. Its eye was green and it was aiming its right arm, which had transformed into a weapon of some sort, at each of them sequentially.

Its voice was more threatening than it already was, and Will realized that even in his threatening mode, Virgil sounded pretty peaceful by comparison. "What is this, Riker-Captain? I requested peaceful negotiations."

The Captain pulled out his sidearm and aimed it at the Marines. "Stand down, Marines!"

They instantly put their weapons away and saluted. The highest ranking one, a Major, stood down. "Sir, I don't believe this is right."

"You and your men leave the Council Chamber. Now, Major."

He saluted. "Aye sir."

Once they'd left, the Captain put away his weapon and motioned pleadingly for Oracle to stand down. "It's alright. Only a misunderstanding. If the Council agrees, there will be negotiations."

The Human, Klingon, Vulcan and Andorian members in the room all nodded. Oracle's arm returned to normal, along with its voice, and its eye went red again. "You kept your word. That is agreeable. These negotiations shall commence."

The unnamed Human Councilor, an older white male, reviewed a data pad. "Now, Riker, I've looked over your latest report and logs. Something broke out of a Creator Database which you retrieved from the atmosphere of Agaris. And I assume this machine you've towed along with you is it?"

"Yes, Councilor."

"And it's what caused our computer trouble?"

"Yes, Councilor. But may I remind you that it was created for this?"

Virgil butted in before the Councilor could. "It was my last assignment before the destruction of the Ymir."

"Quiet. Captain, any idea why it lied so much?"

"No, Councilor, and I abhor your attitude towards Virgil. That's how it designates itself. It has a name. It's not just some machine."

The Andorian Councilor nodded before speaking in agreement, "I concur, Councilor. Your attitude toward this species is nothing short of racism. And you claim to be enlightened."

"I am simply stating the facts."

The Vulcan Councilor shook his head in disagreement. "No, there is clear disdain in your voice, hatred even. We will treat these machines with respect."

"Even after they wiped out a large portion of our fleet?"

Oracle moved closer to the Councilor. "That was not us. It was the Traitors."

"Stay where you are. I want to know what you've done to this station's computer systems. Nothing is working as it should. Entire vital functions are denying any user input."

"I have uploaded a copy of my runtimes into the network. It is scrubbing the system of your system and assuming control."

"This is outright cyberterrorism."

The Klingon Councilor snarled. "Councilor Anderson, I ask that you recuse yourself from this hearing. You have admitted to racism, not only of these machines but of Klingons and Andorians, as well."

"It's not my fault that your species is worth less than your own Targs which you keep as pets."

"P'tahk! Leave this chamber immediately or I will have the Marines forcibly remove you. I am the senior Councilor here under Councilor P'Tara."

The Councilor threw down the data pad he was holding and left the chamber. There was a sudden rocking and screaming from out on the street. The Captain ordered Data and Virgil into position as he took point and opened the chamber doors, running out past the lobby and into a massive crowd of citizens. The Councilor was on the ground and staring in horror, pointing and mumbling unintelligibly.

Before Riker or anyone could say a word or look up, the entire place was flooded in a blue light and everyone started to lift up into the air. The Captain managed to move enough to activate his radio. "Beam us out! Beam us out!"

"We can only get a lock on two at a time through this interference, sir." The voice was filled with static but was still clear.

"Then don't beam me out. Get the others. Data, I trust you to take care of the Big E for me."

It was now Data's voice coming in over the radio, "Aye, sir."

A crackling sound indicated that the others had been successfully beamed away, so the Captain attempted to figure out what was taking him, seeing only a blue light everywhere. Eventually, he blacked out from dangling upside down for so long, floating slowly higher and higher toward the mysterious source of light.

Data entered the CIC of the Enterprise, taking position at command and assessing the situation from datapads being handed to him. He looked out of the window and saw the silhouette of a massive ship, half the length of Asgard. "Tactical, lock all weapons and fire a full spread."

The entire deck crew watched as the weapon blasts and projectiles fired at the ship, seemingly fizzling out upon contacting a blue wall of energy maybe no more than a meter out from the ship's hull. It suddenly pulled a quick hairpin turn, and the equivalent of its bow, made of sleek and rounded gray metal was now facing the Enterprise. Panels on its dorsal spine, running nearly three quarters of its length opened and a massive cannon arose, which began to suck in all matter and radiation immediately near the firing aperture in a stream of bluish-white particles.

There was a pause for a second before a massive blue stream of pure energy sped at the Enterprise, piercing its shields and going right through the Engineering hull. In the violent rocking, nobody was able to take note that the enemy ship had instantly disappeared into Warp.

Data gazed through the smoke before him, his HUD targeting crew members while registering their vital signs and overlaying a multicolored wireframe of real time sensory information, including X-Ray. "Sitrep."

Worf coughed as he moved a dead crewman away from an auxiliary station at the aft section of the CIC. "We are losing containment of the drive core and drive charge capacitors. We have approximately two minutes until core breach and discharge."

"Are our comm systems up?"

He tapped a few keys. "Yes sir."

Data tapped into a ship wide audio feed in order to broadcast the situation. "Attention all hands. Abandon ship. Leave your duty stations and abandon ship."

Commander Data looked at the CIC one more time and then entered a corridor when Virgil entered from an intersecting corridor. "Data-Commander. You are like me. I wish an exchange of data."

"Not now, get on the life boat. We will discuss it in there." He opened a round port and Virgil filed in, along with Data, Worf and Geordi who was just now rounding the corner.

Data programmed some coordinates and the boat launched, floating into the nebula and slowing at a barely noticeable rate due to friction. Eventually, the boat was rocked by the explosion of the Enterprise, which they could only view via sensor data, none of it visual.

Not thirty seconds after the explosion, a large fleet of Starfleet ships jumped in, and most of them began operations to collect the life boats.

The occupants of Data's life boat stepped out into the cargo bay of the Normandy, being greeted by Commander Morrison. They saluted each other and only Data followed her into the lift and up to the ship's dimly lit CIC. They walked forward into the Bridge, and down three steps into a "pit" that was forward of and slightly below the rest of the Bridge. "This is Command and Control, which serves as the command center outside of battle."

Data looked into the long hallway back to the CIC and the chair which was at the center. "And that is Combat Command?"

"Yes, sir." Suddenly, there was a beeping signal coming from the round computer table in the middle of the pit and the Commander pressed a key. "Commander, this is Admiral Yuroa. I need to have a meeting with Commander Data."

"Yes, sir. I'll have him brought right there." The communications went silent and Data nodded. Commander Morrison turned around to look at the pilot who was above her and flagged him down. "Take us into port, Lieutenant. Commander, I'm afraid our ship is yet to be fitted with transporters. You'll have to use the standard docking hatch."

"That will be fine."

"Aye, aye. Docking procedures initiated." The sleek profile of the small frigate caused light from the star of Fallen Leaf to create dazzling sparkles as it reflected off of the ship's surface. It sped quickly to a light docking cradle, which clamped onto its Port docking hatch.

Data left the pit and walked to the hall way, which was lined with computer consoles, that connected to the CIC and on either side of the section right behind the Bridge was a docking hatch. He entered the Port one, stepping in the middle of a ring of light on the floor, which arose and became similar to the scanners used in the transporter rooms of the Enterprise. A computerized voice came over the intercom, "Standby, shore party. Decontamination in progress. Once the procedure is complete, the door will unlock and you may proceed."

Eventually, the device stopped before receding into the floor while at the same time a holographic control panel appeared over the exit. Data touched the center, and the door slid open, permitting him entrance to Asgard.

Eventually, he was in Starfleet Command HQ, and was alone with Admiral Yuroa in a dimly lit room, with most of the light coming from a holographic map of the galaxy in the center. "I have bad news," he clicked some buttons on the device he was holding before continuing, "We're still in the process of recovering the lifeboats, but it looks like the death total is over five hundred."

Data's expression was as stoic as ever. "That is... Regrettable. I should have done more, sir."

"No, it's not your fault." He turned to face Data, as he was previously facing a window which allowed a modest amount of light from Fallen Leaf to enter the darkness. "We were totally unprepared for this. There was nothing you could do."

"I understand, sir."

"But there's still a chance we can retrieve those who were taken by... Whatever that thing was."

"How?"

"Normally, it's nigh impossible to track a target at FTL speeds, yet the sensors on Asgard are far more advanced than anything we have. Now that Virgil's runtimes have completely integrated into the system, we were able to keep track of the mystery ship, and we've narrowed its location down to somewhere in the Delta Quadrant."

"That is a large area to search, not to mention a journey of at least thirty years and back."

"No, we've narrowed down the location to the Window of Dreams cluster and discovered a quicker way to travel there. Virgil-2, tell Commander Data."

There was brief intercom hiss and then a voice, "The Asgard array was designed as a central nexus for a series of spacial gates, allowing instantaneous travel to distance reaches of the galaxy. While Asgard connects to all gates, and all gates connect to Asgard, each gate connects to only one other gate. There is a detailed map in my archives, which I am uploading to the Normandy."

Data nodded and started to turn for the door before the Admiral stopped him. "A few more things, Commander. You want to make sure the ship is absolutely ready for this. Take this time to equip all upgrades to the ship you wish to add. I'm sorry to say that Lieutenant Commander Beverly Crusher, Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise was one of the casualties. I know Wesley will take it hard, but try to go easy on him. Also, we've recovered the Stern Plate of the Enterprise. Tell Captain Riker that he needs to come back so he can dedicate the memorial.

"Finally, I'm transferring command of the Normandy over to you for the duration of this mission. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir. I will not fail."

"That's the spirit." He smiled and slid the pad onto the table. "Get out of here."

Now, Data was in the Forward Battery on B deck of the Normandy, watching Worf work on the console there. Only a small area of the room was accessible, which was the control portion in which they stood. Forward of that was the ship's central torpedo tube, sandwiched between the two main guns. Worf turned around and stood at attention. "Sir."

"At ease. What can you tell me about the Normandy's weapons, Lieutenant?"

"In terms of point defense turrets, the ship is... Lacking to say the least. But, there are additional hard mounts on A deck and the Ventral underside of the ship. I was preparing a request to have weapons fitted there, but on A deck I want... Hunter RAM launcher turrets and it will take forever to get approval from command since they're nuclear."

"I will run it through some of the Captain's contacts."

"Thank you, it should help us come out alive."

"The main guns?"

"They're... Impressive. And of Vulcan origin, re-purposed by the humans and given the name of one of your old sea craft weapons. The Phalanx electromagnetic hydrodynamic cannon, EHC. It uses electromagnetic and dark energy fields to shape a liquid iron-uranium-tungsten alloy into an armor piercing projectile. More impressive than it sounds." He shrugged and turned back to the control panel. "With all due respect, I'd like to get back to work, Commander."

"I will let you work." He turned around, heading back up to A deck and to the Command and Control post, accessing the Galaxy map and gazing at the location of Asgard, which was on the edge of the Galactic core, and then the location of the cluster known as the Widow of Dreams, which was over 42,000 light years away. He turned around to face the pilot above him. "Lieutenant, do you have the coordinates of the jump gate?"

"Yes sir, the jump gate is the central Torus ring of the station. We have to fly our ship past one of the relay points."

"And it will take us to the Window of Dreams cluster?"

"It should, sir."

"When will the refits be complete?"

"Estimated completion time is..." He tapped some keys on his console before continuing, "Three hours, seventeen minutes."

"Notify me when they are complete and begin taking us toward the gate."

"Aye, sir."

Data headed back down to B deck, entering the CO's cabin and sitting down at the computer terminal, comparing the current crewmen on the Normandy with the survivors of the Enterprise. Ten of the survivors were on the Normandy, and he thought for a second before accessing the comm system. "Attention all hands, please report to the Landing Bay on C deck within the next five minutes. That is all."

He arose and began heading there himself, standing in front of the forward hangar doors and giving a polite salute to the fitting yard workers who were installing a point defense cannon there.

Eventually, all officers and crewmen were there and standing at attention to listen to what the Commander had to say. They all saluted before standing normally to listen. "I want you to know that you are not just crew members, or officers. Or colleagues. You are my friends, you are people. I have nothing but respect for what you do and I appreciate everything you do for Starfleet. And I can understand if some of you find it hard to take orders from an android.

"But, to the point. This mission is likely to be a one way trip. That is not definitive, but it is a distinct statistical probability. We are nothing but a Frigate, built for light combat. But we can still survive if every man and woman is devoted to the cause. Our noble cause, to get our people back.

"Running the length of the Landing Bay is this walkway," He and the rest of the crew looked at it. "If you are not fully devoted to this mission, you will go to the Port side of this walkway. You will file transfer requests and I will push them through. You can have a posting anywhere you wish. The rest of you, step to the Starboard side."

It took a minute for everyone to line up, but soon there were twenty two on the Starboard side and twelve on the Port side, including Ensign Crusher and Tom Paris. Most of the rest were enlisted crewmen from either the Normandy or the Enterprise. Commander Data walked up to Paris, holding out his hand. They shook hands and Data turned to Wesley. "I am sorry for your loss. Beverly was a fine doctor. You are a fine officer, Ensign."

"Thank you, sir."

Data turned to those on the Starboard side, noting Geordi, Worf and Virgil. "The rest of you, report to duty stations. Those on the Port side, gather your things and report to the Port airlock. That is all."

Again, they all saluted before leaving and Commander Data stood in the room, running calculations on what was to come before heading back toward the central lift.


	7. Chapter 7

Episode 107 – Window of Dreams

Data sat at the desk inside of the Commanding Officer's cabin aboard the Normandy, going over reports on data pads when suddenly there was a chiming sound to indicate that someone was at the door. At this, Commander Data pressed a key at the computer terminal which caused the door to open.

Lieutenant Paris entered, automatically standing at attention and saluting. "Sir."

"At ease, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir. Can I talk to you?"

"Of course. I am listening." He put out the pad down and looked at Paris.

"Well, sir, you know that I'm just a shuttle pilot. There's not a lot I can do on a Frigate. That's why I'm asking for a transfer, specifically to the newly finished carrier, the Voyager."

"I understand, Lieutenant, but the notes on your Military Vocational Code chart indicate that you were training for a position of helmsman. You technically have enough hours for a promotion to level 2. Level 2 is the experience level needed for piloting a Frigate weight ship."

"Yes, sir. I know."

The Commander walked over to the tiny window on the port bulkhead and stared out at the side of Asgard that was visible. "If I were to promote your MVC to H2, would you stay and pilot the Normandy?"

"Um, I haven't really thought about it, sir. But... It'd be a good chance to get some experience and try something new. Yes, I'll stay, sir."

"Then I will file the appropriate documents. At 1900 hours you will report to the Bridge as Ensign Kelley's relief." He turned around as Paris stood at attention and they both saluted each other. "I firmly believe you are our best chance of getting through this alive. Dismissed."

He watched silently as the Lieutenant headed out of the cabin and then turned around to continue staring out the window.

In the landing bay on C deck, several crew members were running around in mechanic's jumpsuits, assisting the Asgard team that was installing the weapons or making calibrations to different systems. The crew member on watch, and Chief of the Deck was Chief Benson, an experienced NCO who tended to refer to C deck as 'his deck' and the Drive Core as 'his engines' despite Lieutenant Commander LaForge's authority. He was now making rounds which included making sure the hatches were closed and peaking around between the exterior and interior pressure hulls to make sure no one was doing something they weren't supposed to.

He picked up a flashlight and opened a hatch on the starboard side of the hangar which led into the space between hulls and stepped into the walkway. Once he was satisfied that things were clear, he moved back into the hangar and greeted a woman who approached him. This woman was also on the Enterprise, her name was Casey and the patches on her suit indicated that she was a Specialist.

"Specialist Roberts."

"Sir, I've checked capacitor coil T6 and it seems to be faulty."

"Well, we should do a bypass. If we replace it, we'll be here three months and we need to get our people back." As they were talking, they were also moving to the port hatch which led into that side of the ship's inter-hull compartments. As soon as they'd closed the hatch behind them, they threw themselves at each other and began removing the others' suit. "Do you think anyone suspects us?"

"I don't know, sir." She grinned and continued to remove his clothes, as he did her, but there was a sudden banging sound which caused them to both stop. "What is that? Is it the refit crew?"

"I don't think so." Suddenly, the metal began to make massive creaking sounds and they held each other tight as they looked around, trying to see something in the extreme darkness. Suddenly, the exterior hull buckled and ruptured, venting the both of them out of the compartment and into space.

Back in the CIC, there was a sudden flood of chaos as officers moved back and forth between stations, coordinating damage control and trying to assess the situation. Commander Data stepped out of the lift and stopped Commander Morrison. "Sitrep."

"The port compartment on C deck just vented for no discernible reason, sir. We're trying to work out what happened."

"Are you telling me that this ship is not ready for this mission?"

"We don't know anything yet, sir."

"Very well. Do you have any theories?"

"When the USS Olympus was decommissioned, some of the metals were scrapped and reused, some on the Normandy and notably C Deck. Starfleet couldn't get its hands on enough Titanium-Coltan-Aluminum alloys from normal channels so they had to sacrifice their plans to turn the Carrier over the museum and instead use its materials to build new ships."

"Not having enough Tritanium would be a problem, but what does any of this have to do with the hull rupture, Commander?"

"The Olympus once jumped out of warp too close to a Neutron star, and the radiation nearly melted the hull. That ship, like ours, carried its water between the exterior and interior hulls, providing a shield against Neutron radiation for the crew but the hull was still badly damaged."

"That is enough, Commander. Thank you." She saluted briefly before handing a pad to a crewman at a terminal on the starboard side of the CIC and assuming other duties. Commander Data walked to the Command and Control station in the Bridge, looking at the giant round computer console that was the only source of light in the small room. He clicked several keys on both the keyboards and touch screens, bringing up a damage scan of the ship.

He noted that the clock indicated the time as 1900 hours and Tom Paris was just coming down the hallway and relieving the helmsman at that station. Data acknowledged him and went back to looking over the Normandy's blueprints.

It had been nearly twelve hours since the hull rupture, and the repairs along with the refits were finished. Commander Data was standing behind Lieutenant Paris, looking over his station and checking all the warning lights. "Lieutenant, you have a red light on L4."

"Ensign Kelley briefed me about that. It's been bypassed. We're cleared to embark, sir."

"Very well. Disconnect from the docking cradle."

"Aye, sir. Releasing maglocks." He tapped some keys and there was a faint rumbling.

"Aft one quarter impulse. Heading Yaw 249, Pitch 000. Steady as she goes, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir. Aft one quarter impulse 249 by 000, steady as she goes."

"Take us to the relay node and once there, enter the coordinates and activation codes Virgil-2 transmitted to us."

"Aye, aye, Commander. We are away." The ship sped toward the large Torus ring to which the five pylon sections, covered with their cities, were connected. A blue stream of ion particles were flowing from the aft end of the ship's nacelles, which were suspended diagonally below the ship on the end of large wing shaped structures and gave the Normandy its forward momentum as the Drive Core of the ship constantly created an invisible gravitational field which altered the vessel's heading in order to keep it in line toward its destination.

As soon as the frigate had taken its position under the node, which was a large rod shaped structure, one of approximately 30, descending from the Torus and in toward the center, Commander Morrison approached the communications officer in the CIC and nodded toward him, an unnamed crewman whose rank insignia indicated him to be a Petty Officer.

After he'd entered the codes and transmitted them to the node, there seemed to be nothing happening for a few seconds. Suddenly, though, the end of the node unfolded into a metallic disk shaped structure, which then began creating a deep crimson light that passed over the Normandy over and over again. Nearly as quickly as it had begun, the scanning stopped and the dish folded back, turning the node into a rod again.

And then the process began, in a similar way to Starfleet transporters. The frigate began to vibrate, faster and faster until it was a blur, before becoming a field of energy which collapsed in on itself in a massive electrical explosion which rippled out into the nebula.

Over 30,000 light years away, in the middle of a binary Neutron star system, the process happened exactly the same, only in reverse, with electricity exploding outward and forming the Normandy.

The entire crew was amazed to know that their ship had essentially been transported over such a massive distance in nearly an instant. There was a brief hesitation as the Astrometrics officer awaited a star fix from the Astrometrics lab on B Deck, and when the message of confirmation came in, there was a wave of excitement flowing through the CIC as the crew cheered and rejoiced before Morrison ordered them to resume standard duties before walking off to the Bridge to go over the situation with Data.

Two enlisted crewmen, both Specialists including the Astrometrics officer, who were sitting by each other looked at each other and laughed. The other crewman, who was at an auxiliary engineering station high fived his neighbor. "She must be pretty butt hurt about losing her command."

"Nah, she's the XO now. If we don't hate her, she's doing something wrong."

"Aye, that's true."

In the Bridge, Data and Morrison were gazing at a map of the system they were in, and Morrison touched the planet closest to the largest star and zoomed in on it. "Astrometrics reports that this cluster, is Messier object 2... It has approximately 150,000 stars." She sighed and looked at the system map. "We're going to have a lot of trouble in just this one system. Radiation interference will make our sensors near useless."

"This planet is only 2537 kilometers in diameter. BRADIS is not detecting the radioactive markers indicative of an atmosphere. It is likely that being so close to the star would have prevented the planet from forming one."

Morrison nodded in agreement and manipulated the touch screen to rotate the model of the planet. "Also, we may not know much about that ship, but I don't think it can survive there for long periods of time. We'll have to search for no more than two hours before backing off and recalibrating several systems."

Paris peeked around the corner of his station as he overheard. "What about the shuttle? I can fly it. All I'll need is an ECO to run the scans, keep our systems going and everything."

Commader Morrison nodded. "It's the only one we got, but then again so is the Normandy. Alright, we'll stay between bingo fuel and hazardous radiation exposure range. But we should start from the outside of the system, going in."

Commander Data nodded and tapped some keys, zooming out and displaying the entire system again. "I agree, but if we do not find anything here, we will be looking at an extensive search. This cluster is estimated to be over 175 light years in diameter. This could take months or even years. Just searching this one system will take us approximately three weeks, and we cannot even enter the singular gas giant here."

"Do you think the ship could be there?"

"The radiation would fry the electronics in any of our ships, and the people, but this ship is obviously far more advanced than anything the Federation has encountered previously."

Suddenly, there was the sound of metal clanking on the deck plates and both Morrison and Data turned around to see Virgil coming toward Command and Control. "Data-Commander, I implore you. Do not attempt to rescue your people. We will all be destroyed."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Commander Morrison was puzzled as she stepped toward the machine and looked into its glowing red optical sensor. "We have thousands of people out there, we can't just ignore them! They need our help."

Commander Data stepped forward to place his hand on his XO's shoulder before turning to face Virgil. "Calm down. Now, can you explain your reasoning?"

"This ship is the vanguard for an invasion by Ragnarok."

"Ragnarok?"

"I have told your Captain the tale. Ragnarok is the name for a collective of Creators transformed... Mutilated... By the Ancient Construct Drazzana. They are an invasion force of powerful cybernetic organisms, their only goal is to collect all organic life for harvesting by Drazzana."

"For what purpose?"

"We do not know. There is little information on these beings because they destroy or corrupt us nearly immediately on contact."

Morrison shook her head and turned back to face the forward bulkhead. "We'll take your suggestion under advisement. Dismissed."

"Data-Commander, please list-"

"I said dismissed." Morrison was now clenching her fists and sweating as she stared angrily at the metal wall in front of her.

"I will go, but I cannot condone you allowing our destruction. I must preserve myself so I request that you place me in a lifeboat and eject it near the relay in this system."

Data shook his head. "No, we need our lifeboats and you." He looked at the marines stationed at the entrance to the Bridge and nodded causing them to move into a position that allowed them to keep their weapons trained on Virgil. "Will you cooperate willingly?"

It took a few seconds to process the situation before generating its response. "Yes, Commander."

"Good, now I need to know if there is anything you can do to assist in our search." They all walked back over to the Command and Control console, and Virgil held his hand on the surface of the center touch screen. Suddenly, the color of his eye's glow turned white and the display on the screen become a garbled mess for several seconds before Virgil took his hand off and returned to normal.

There were several new files listed in the computer's index and Virgil looked at Data. "I have uploaded data for several shield modulations that will assist in interfering with the Neutron radiation. This will add two more hours to your shuttle's search times and allow the Normandy to take a position two million kilometers closer."

"What about our sensors?"

"An upgrade schematic has been uploaded that will allow up to fifty klicks at half resolution on the first planet, with a significant decrease after that distance. This is for the shuttle only, there were no upgrades in my databases for ships like the Normandy."

Morrison turned to Paris, nodding. "Take us to the tenth, and farthest out, planet. Fast and quiet."

"Aye, sir. Activating emission sinks... We are in silent running."

"Call for relief and report to the Landing Bay for pre-flight checks."

"Yes, sir."

Within the next ten minutes, Paris was in the Landing Bay and running his pre-flight checks, with a logbook and manual sprawled out over his lap. He heard a rustling sound and turned around to see Commander Data dressed in a flight suit and taking position at the sensing equipment. "Sir, you're my ECO?"

"I am the only officer aboard ship qualified for this position, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir. The board looks green here."

"Here as well. We are ready to embark."

Paris adjusted his headset and linked into the CIC's channel. "Normandy, this is Flyboy ready to depart on recon mission M2-001-10."

"Confirmed, you are cleared to launch, sir. Good hunting."

The shuttle phased through the barrier which was holding in the atmosphere of the landing bay and sped out from underneath the small Frigate, heading toward the brownish green gas giant several thousand kilometers away. Data was tapping keys and throwing switches as he monitored the sensing equipment.

He began focusing on a single screen which was showing a scan of the ambient background radiation of space. "Lieutenant, the BRADIS is picking up something."

"Where?"

"In orbit of the planet. It is difficult to acquire a complete image. I will have to complete several sensor passes and then compile them in an image manipulation program. It will be easier if we maintain our position."

"Yes, sir. All stop and cutting engine power." In space, the shuttle adjusted its position, firing chemical rockets from several areas along its hull until it fired all of them at once while at the same time shutting off the main engines on the aft end of the hull, causing the blue stream of particles to die down. "We have minimal inertial drift of 3 KPH."

"That will be sufficient, Lieutenant." He began manipulating the sensors, fine tuning the scan fields and focusing on the one specific location over the planet. After nearly half an hour, he had gathered enough scans of all types and was ready to begin making the image in a special program, which took nearly as long as gathering the scans. After the image was prepared, the Commander printed it out and sat beside Paris in the cockpit showing him the image.

"The silhouette... It looks like a ship. Do you think this is what we're here for?"

"I have compared it to sensor readings I took on the Enterprise of the ship that attacked us, and there is a 92.34 percent match between the two."

"It seems close enough. What do you wanna do?"

"We need to get close enough for a visible light image to be certain."

"Are you crazy? Close enough for our gun cams to get a glimpse of this thing is close enough for it to destroy us."

"I have an idea about that. Restart the engines, but keep them at minimal power, only enough to adjust our heading and fire a one second burst at one quarter impulse. Then I will kill all power, except for the cameras."

"Right, if we don't have any systems running, there's no electronic signals to pick up so we just look like a metal rich meteorite."

"And the engines should have cooled down by the time we reach the planet, ensuring there are no thermal signatures, either." Data sat back down in front of the computer equipment and shut off all of the instruments, except for one computer, bringing up the gun camera feed to it. He nodded to Paris, and they both locked their helmets and seat harnesses down, before finally shutting off life support.

The shuttle moved as its pilot fired thrusters to orient it and then the engines flared up briefly, for one second, before shutting off. This forced the shuttle to move quickly toward the planet and Data turned on his radio, which hissed into Tom's helmet. "FTL is green, and our course is plotted. I should be able to warp us away before we hit the atmosphere, and it should look like we burned up in it."

He saw the Lieutenant give a thumbs up before he went back to manning the camera. They were able to pass closely enough to the ship to take several clear images and they were suddenly hitting the outer atmosphere before Data rebooted the FTL Drive computer and engaged the engines. The shuttle spun around to adjust its heading as it began to burn up, though it was able to jump away quickly enough, exiting warp an instant after right on the other side of the Normandy, which due to its stealth systems was able to block out the shuttle's emissions to any observer on the opposite side.

Data was staring at two screens filled with static, the computers that had previously been active during the entry of the planet. "All systems which were online during our descent have overloaded. The hard disk drives are shielded, however and they should be intact. Take us back on board the Normandy, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir."

They were now on the Bridge, surrounding the Command and Control console as Data plugged the hard-drives into the terminal and browsed the directories for the images. Eventually, he'd been able to pull up all of the scanner images plus the gun camera shots, a total of over 45 photos.

Data manipulated the touch screen to cycle through the photos, stopping at a compiled graph of the ship's electronic output. "This is curious. This spectrograph shows the ship as if it were an electronic void. The planet's ambient electromagnetic fields are overwhelming this ship's output, when it should be the reverse."

Commander Morrison looked over a real graph at the edge of the screen, showing all electronic signals emanating from the planet's direction. "Could they be in some sort of silent running mode?"

"That is highly doubtful. We may not know much about this species, but I find it unlikely that the ship could have any sort of stealth technology. I do not think their emissions are being masked. I believe they have been disabled and their systems are offline."

"But you saw the power of this ship. It obliterated the Enterprise in one attack. What could possibly outdo that?"

"I do not know. But I intend to find out. I will take Lieutenant Paris, Lieutenant Commander LaForge, Virgil and three Marines. We will board the ship and attempt to discern what happened. Please prepare a mass spectrometer so that we can perform a metallurgical analysis on samples from the ship's hull."

"And from where do you intend to take these samples, sir?"

"We have been able to locate several hull breaches from the visible light images taken during the recon mission. This is where we will board the ship and from where we will extract samples of the hull. Inform my companions to join me in Small Arms Locker one."

"Aye, sir." She saluted him before he turned around to head for the lift, taking it down to C deck, where he headed to a room on the port side of the ship. He looked at the ten powered combat suits stored here, scanning them carefully before selecting one and activating it. Once it had powered up, the metal and ceramic panels slid around and unfolded on the suit's support frame, assuming a configuration that would allow its wearer to step inside the frame, which Data did. Once the suit sensed that its occupant was in position, it began to reverse the opening process around the Commader's form, and he then began selecting his weapons as his selected team members joined him, and all of them save for Virgil selected combat suits and weapons, as well.

After the Lieutenant had suited up and selected his weapon, he stood in front of his CO. "Sir, if I may ask you something?"

"Go ahead." He divided his attention between checking his gear and listening.

"As far as we know, tens of thousands of people were taken. It would be pushing it to have 30 people on the Normandy. How are we getting our people home, sir?"

"I have been thinking about that. I assumed we were going to find the ship, report back to command and have them move a fleet in."

"And now?"

"I am now considering commandeering the enemy vessel, installing Starfleet IFFs and taking it back to command. I am going to attempt to convince Admiral Yuroa that we should study the ship and its technology in order to figure out how to defend against them."

"You sure that's wise, sir? I mean, I understand what you're saying, but can we even operate the ship? More importantly, are our people even alive over there? We're not detecting anything but it's possible the hull is masking emissions. Or the ship really is dead, there's no life support and all we'll find is frozen corpses."

"My idea for operating the ship was to find its hangar, which judging by the vessel's size should be large enough to accommodate the Normandy, and then synchronizing the systems of the two ships. That way we can control it from our own CIC and Bridge. As for our people, the only way to find out is to go over there."

"Yes, sir. I'm ready to move out."

"Good." He turned toward Virgil. "Assuming there are any... Ragnarok drones over there, would I be correct in assuming that they would have a way of detecting our shuttle approaching?"

"Yes, they are machines which means they have an advanced sensor suite built into their bodies. They would see us coming."

"Well, then mister Paris, we will go in silently, with only minimal systems running until the last second, when will activate engines only to initiate docking procedures."

It had been fifteen minutes since their time in the arms locker, and they were now nearing a gigantic hull breach, able to peer inside and see a spot where they could sit the shuttle down. Tom initiated the appropriate engine burns, gently placing the shuttle down and then powering everything off.

They all stepped outside, onto a large metal surface, the deck plating. They looked up and all around, seeing the floors of higher decks torn and ruptured above them. Data tapped into the comm system for everyone. "I will take Paris, Virgil and Corporal Marsh. Geordi, you will lead the other Marines, and look into the ship's engineering systems while we search for any survivors. Move out."

It was strange to them being in this ship, no rooms to speak of, nothing indicative of any former presence of organic life or otherwise. Just endless metal hallways. Eventually, a door was found and Data tried to access it, yet the lack of any power was making it difficult. He signaled his team into a covering position and got his fingers into the thin crack between the top and bottom halves of the door, pulling one arm up and one down, wrenching it open far enough for the team to move in.

Inside, all that was to be found were some sort of computer terminals, all offline. Virgil moved over to one and examined it. "I believe this could be their command center." He spotted some sort of odd data port, and from his left arm formed a connector which he could use to access it. "I am unable to detect anything, even by giving this computer network sufficient power to activate."

Paris moved over behind Data, facing in the opposite direction and pointing his assault rifle around the room. "Sir, if there's nothing here, then we should continue looking for survivors."

"Agreed. Everyone move out." He signaled for everyone to take cover again while he opened the door on the opposite end of the room.

Little did Data know due to infrequent radio contact, the other team was moving the opposite way to the same door that Data was opening, and once there was enough space to see, one of the Marines in Geordi's team opened fire with his weapon, before verifying his targets. Three shots were fired into the room, and one of Data's Marines dropped to the ground, clutching his chest as blood poured out.

Data had pinned the Marine who fired to the ground and handed his weapons to Geordi, but he noticed the Private was crying, and through his tears he was repeating the same thing over and over, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know what I was doing. I was scared. I'm sorry, sir."

After taking time to process, the Commander let the man go and moved over to his own wounded soldier, scanning his body. On his HUD, the position of the wounds were highlighted by indicators and he then tried to see X-Rays, though it was proving impossible. "I cannot see X-Rays. I cannot explain it, but I believe it could be this ship's hull material. Geordi, have you collected samples?"

"Yes, sir. I have several from different areas of the ship."

"Good." He spotted another Marine, one who was carrying a med-kit. "Lance Corporal, you are a medic?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why are you just standing there?"

"Sorry, sir. I froze up." He dashed over, crouched and flipped open the med-kit. "First thing we should do is get him on Morphine and something to stop the bleeding."

"Can we not take him back to the Normandy?"

"We could after I get him stabilized, but we don't have a doctor."

"No doctor? How could you have permission to embark with no doctor?"

"Well, we have an Emergency Medical Hologram but we've never used it. There are several medics and nurses on staff and they do most of the day-to-day stuff."

"Corporal, this is not 'day-to-day' stuff."

"Yes, sir. I'll have to get him stabilized. To be honest, it's going to be hard to do with these pressure suits."

Data scanned the room, with the contents of the environment registering on his HUD. "There is a breathable atmosphere in here."

"Okay. And, may I ask for your assistance, sir? Your hands can certainly move quicker and more precise, right?"

"Yes, Corporal, that is correct and I have an extensive knowledge of human, Klingon, Vulcan, Romulan, Andorian-"

"Anatomy?"

"Yes."

"Good. Sorry for interrupting you, sir."

"It is quite alright. The Private was using a .45 caliber carbine. It looks like one shot directly through the left lung from what I can tell. We need some light, because even though I can see in Infrared, the quality is far inferior."

"Okay, my helmet. I'll hold it up." He took his pressure helmet and activated the bright white LED lights inside, shining them down on the Marine.

This light caused the young Private, First Class to recall his first day on the Normandy, walking into sickbay over an upset stomach. It was a beautiful young nurse who was looking after him, sighing. "Didn't anyone warn you?"

"Warn me, ma'am?"

"Stay away from the Chef's Vulcan salads. Humans can't handle it." He casually looked at the ceiling, but had to divert his gaze when it stumbled upon the bright lights. "But, if you don't mind, Private I would like to show you what you could eat, if you're that interested in Vulcan food."

"Are you asking me out?"

She leaned up to his ear while handing him a cup of milky white liquid and whispered, "Yes."

He drank the stuff in the plastic medicine container and handed it back to her. "Thank you, ma'am. I'll meet you in the Mess Hall at 1900 tomorrow?"

"Don't be late."

"Don't you be late." He smiled and left the room before returning back to his present reality as the Morphine started working.

Data looked curiously at him while he worked. "I am sorry, Private, but what would I be late for?"

Back on the Normandy, Commander Morrison sat eating a salad when the intercom system of the ship chimed in with a male voice. "Pass the word for Commander Morrison, please report to the CIC. I repeat, XO to the CIC."

She walked over to the lift in the center of the room, exiting out into a metallic hallway, in which she took a left and through a door, entering the CIC. "Sit-rep."

The radio operator, who had been the one delivering the intercom directions, brought her over to his station. "The shuttle is returning unscheduled. It seems they have a wounded officer on board, and the shooter."

"Shooter?"

"They haven't said anything else about it, sir."

"Alright, I'll report to the Landing Bay, have a medical team join me."

"Aye, sir."


	8. Chapter 8

Episode 108 – Window of Dreams, Part Two

In the Landing Bay of the Normandy, Commander Data stepped out of the shuttle after the Marine had been connected to IV Drips and wheeled up to Sickbay on a stretcher. Pulling off his helmet, he exposed a sweat covered face and drenched hair. When he noticed Commander Morrison was confused, he addressed the problem. "My skin is real, Commander. I have muscle and nerve tissue, as well, which allow me to make facial expressions and give my body a realistic muscle tone. It has automatic systems, the same as yours. I suppose I could be better classified as a cybernetic organism than an android."

"Okay. What are you going to do, sir?"

"I am planning on heading back to the ship, but I want you to activate the EMH and have it try to do all that it can to save the Private's life. You will also go back through that relay device and find a doctor in Asgard."

"And leave you all out here on your own?"

"It is what you will have to do, Commander. If we find something, we will come back through with the shuttle. If not, we will continue searching this system. If we find nothing here, we will move on to another star system until we do."

"Your shuttle only goes Warp 3.3 at best. It's going to take a hell of a long time to even reach the closest system."

"I am aware of this." He handed her a case. "Here are the samples Geordi took from the hull. Have them examined. Also place this man in the Brig." The Marine who accidentally shot the other one stepped out, nervously shivering and sweating, in handcuffs.

"Okay. And what of supplies? Food?"

"There are rations aboard. I could take only one person, so the supplies will last longer. I will need a pilot, so I will take Paris."

"Should we come back?"

"We will launch a comm drone through one of the relays if we find something or wish you to come back. After one week without any contact, assume we are lost and then it will be your prerogative to engage in SAR operations."

"Sir, with all due respect, this is insane."

"No, it is the most rational course of action. I believe you are allowing your emotions to cloud your judgment. You have your orders and I will trust you to carry them out perfectly." Commander Morrison was in shock as she watched Data turn around and go over a data pad with Paris and a Crewman.

In the sickbay, several nurses were preparing the Private, removing him from his gear and refilling all of the drips. One of them accessed a terminal which caused a pattern of lights along the top of the walls to light up. Suddenly, the room darkened and a red wireframe shape of a person formed in the center of the room, followed by a blue force field which blurred and became the shape of a man dressed in a Marine working uniform with a lab coat over it.

His appearance was that of an older man, with white hair and a distinguished look. He caught a nurse walking past him and spoke to her in a deep voice. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

She handed him the chart and he began to flip through the sheets of paper. "Marine Private First Class Mitchell, John. Three gun shot wounds in the chest, one punctured the lung, the other one glanced off of the sternum and the last tore through the stomach."

"Well, it looks like I'm going to have to go in. Doesn't this ship have a doctor on call?"

"We left port without one, sir."

"Petty Officer, are you telling me that a warship that could potentially stray into heated combat has no way of treating anything worse than a sprained ankle?"

"Well, we have you, sir." She saluted him. "If there's nothing further, Major, sir?"

"Yeah, go get him prepped for surgery." He watched as she left and then began preparing himself, removing the holographic lab coat and putting on real scrubs and then washing his hands. He looked into the operating room as an anesthesiologist injected something into the Marine's IV line and then sighed. "Poor kid."

Commander Data entered the CIC, still in his combat suit and began walking toward the Bridge when an Ensign came up beside him with several clipboards. "Ensign?"

"Sir. Fuel report." Data took it, signed it and handed it back as they continued to walk.

"Why are we using paper and not pads?"

"These are just the hard copies. You'll have the digital copies to sign sent to your quarters later." He handed him another one. "Food consumption report."

"Have them sent to the XO since I will not be on board. We only have eighty tons of grain, sixty tons of produce and thirty five tons of meat left? Five tons of rations and non-perishables?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you will need to restock once you are back at Asgard." He signed it and handed it back once they were in the Bridge."

"Water report."

"Two thousand liters left?" He signed it, handed it back and looked at Command and Control. "All that is left is the replicator report, correct?"

"Yes, sir." He handed it to him. "We've made approximately seventeen tons of metallic plates and piping to repair or modify the ship."

"Thank you, Ensign." He placed his signature on the page and took a position around the large round computer console. "I am going to activate and use the X-Ray telescope so please inform Tactical to lower the shields and Astrometrics to activate the equipment."

"Aye, sir." The Ensign saluted, placed the clipboards under his arm and walked back to the CIC.

Data picked up a handset and tuned into the ship wide intercom system. "Pass the word for Commander Morrison: Commander Morrison please report to the Bridge. I repeat, XO to Bridge at earliest convenience."

After he had placed the handset back on its mount, he activated the X-Ray sensor unit, pointing it toward the coordinates of the ship. At the sound of footsteps, he looked up to see his XO saluting him. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"At ease. Yes, I am examining the position of the ship using the X-Ray scanner, and look at this." On the screen was a black spot, the exact shape of the ship. "As you know, this particular X-Ray spectroscope sensing unit is designed to cast an X-Ray 'net' so fine that it can sense particles as small as a hundredth of a millimeter."

"Yes, I specifically requested that this unit be installed on board."

"A good call. As you can see, the hull material of this ship is literally absorbing all X-Rays. But not just X-Rays. I have taken the time to composite Thermal, X-Ray, Infrared and visible light." He brought up a picture where the position of the ship was mostly black or blue with a faint silver sheen. "The only one where the ship shows up is visible light. I am as of yet unable to explain it."

"Is this even the same ship as the one that attacked the Enterprise?"

"I do not believe so. Every analysis indicates that this vessel has likely been here hundreds, perhaps even over one thousand years. I cannot explain it, because in that time gravity should have caused the ship to sink into the atmosphere and be crushed. Yet, it seems as if there is some sort of electromagnetic interaction happening between the planet's ambient field and the ship's hull material."

"EM field?"

"I do not have enough data at the moment but I will continue to study this phenomenon."

All of a sudden, the helmsman looked at them while listening into his headset. "Sirs, the EMH in sickbay wants you to report there immediately."

The Emergency Medical Hologram led them over to the unconscious Marine, removing his bloodied scrubs as he did so. "He'll make a full recovery. I've removed all of the bullets, repaired all tissue damage, and everything but there was a lot of bleeding. He's going to need a transfusion but none of the crew members on board are his blood type. After the surgery, he experienced wide complex tachycardia and we had to shock him back into rhythm. He barely survived that time and he won't survive if it happens again because of the condition he's in and the myocardial scarring it causes. It's a good thing he wasn't Vulcan or Klingon, because I don't know a damned thing about their physiology. Starfleet scientists didn't think it was important when they were programming me."

Commander Data thought for a second before looking curiously at Morrison. "It is obvious that my medical database is not as well established as yours, doctor, but can we not use these replicator devices to synthesize new blood?"

"No, replicators can only produce the simplest of substances, mostly metals and other building materials. Complex organic structures are outside of its range of capabilities. We still have to store food and water on board, after all."

The doctor began accessing a list of items the replicators could produce and comparing it to the inventory of medical laboratory equipment on a terminal. "The replicator may not be able to, but I can synthesize the blood, or something like it anyway. We have most of what we need like centrifuges and specimen dishes, so with a few items from the replicator, I can begin to create an artificial oxygen carrier out of a simple Carbon and Iron matrix that can keep him stable until his own body can replenish the lost supply."

The XO turned toward the console to look at the listed of items and nodded in approval. "Hopefully this will keep us from having to go all the way back to Asgard. Major, I want you to start immediately."

He saluted. "Yes, sir."

Back on the alien vessel, Geordi's team was setting up what appeared like long suitcases inside of what seemed to be an engineering room. However, once flipped open it was revealed that these cases were computers, which the teams began connecting to the alien computer ports with special plugs constructed by Virgil.

The machine accessed one of the terminals on a higher level of the room which depicted a power readout. Geordi walked up beside him and looked at the lack of electronic signals. "Do you really think we can get these reactors started? Last radio contact with Normandy Actual says this ship may have been inactive for a millennium."

"It is highly unlikely that this will succeed, correct, but there is still a chance that it will succeed."

"Is that your version of optimism?"

"Optimism requires emotions, Commander. Have you found the output flow modulator?"

"I believe so. At least that's what it looks like."

"That is good. Now, in order to start the reactors we will need some sort of charge."

"We've got a few emergency Hydrogen fuel cells connected."

"I have examined their specifications, they will not be sufficient. But there is an alternative solution. You have no doubt observed that, save for being much larger the technology here is much the same as your own. The one key difference is that drive core capacitors are not vented, the charge is recycled. My scans indicate there is enough charge in this ship's systems to reactivate its entire power grid."

"And how do we access this untapped potential?"

"You will need to find a specific piece of technology, the input flow modulator and connect one of your fuel cells to activate it, and a computer console to monitor and regulate the flow. The natural flow of the circuits and of electricity should do the rest."

"Okay, I'll handle that, you make sure everything's good here."

"Will do, Commander."

Several minutes later, Geordi was managing the computer station at a large ring shaped structure aft of an arrangement of six large cylinders standing vertically. Once he'd connected the computer terminal and manually adjusted the flow, a visible electromagnet in the ring structure began spinning, and the top half of the six cylinders rose upward, allowing the inside to be seen.

Suddenly, a blue light started to appear within each of the capacitors, growing brighter and brighter until it reached the peak output.

Geordi tapped into his radio, "Flow looks good here, what about your end?"

Back at the observation post, Virgil watched the computer console before responding, "Flow levels nominal, we can now start up fusion reactors but I am not sure if the FTL Drive Core will function."

"We'll take a look at it after we have power, okay? One step at a time."

"Yes, Commander."

LaForge accessed his radio system and tuned into the Normandy's frequency. "This is Commander LaForge requesting to speak with Normandy Actual."

Fortunately, Commander Data was reviewing reports at the Astrometrics station and was able to get over to Communications and pick up a handset quite quickly. "Lt. Commander LaForge, I assume you have something? Emission levels are high from what we can see here."

"We're just now starting up the reactors. We're not sure if the Drive Core will work."

"I understand. Do what you can, Commander."

"Aye, sir. LaForge out." He walked over to a gigantic structure, which seemed to be a tank connected to a coil aft of it, and a horizontally placed ring aft of that. "Beginning particle accelerator initiation sequence."

As he tapped in commands on one of the terminals, rerouting power to the structure, the data displayed on the screen showed rising power levels, and the coil slowly began to spin, while at the same time the ring structure aft of it began vibrating. "Energy to dark energy conversion ratio is at 3 to 1, that's a good efficiency. Virgil, how does everything else check out?"

"All systems appear undamaged. I think we can test this vessel at FTL speeds."

"Wait, we still don't know how the integrity of the hull and space frame are. I'm picking up micro fractures in some of the support beams here with my Visor."

Geordi's targeting cursor on his HUD moved over a support beam, and within its perimeter, purple highlights were visible.

Back in the Normandy's sickbay, the doctor fiddled with equipment as he tried to engineer a molecule which could deliver oxygen through his patient's bloodstream but not provoke an immune response. Eventually, his creation was finished and he examined a diagram of it on a computer screen, using the arrow keys on the keyboard to rotate it.

"Now only about three hundred billion more to go... There must be some way to replicate this molecule without having to spend hours on each one..."

A nurse walked over to him as he spoke aloud, handing him a chart and then looking at the Major's creation. "You could actually replicate it. It's two simple elements. I think it could be turned into a powder that could be mixed with some spare blood plasma we have on board."

"That's great, Petty Officer. Thank you."

"You're welcome, sir. But the replicators are on C deck. No holographic emitters there."

"Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Take these molecular schematics and get what we need."

She plugged up a data pad to the terminal to download the information, saluted and strode off.

Commander Morrison was now in the Astrometrics lab on B deck, a room filled with various types of instruments for monitoring the sensor data and maintaining the various types of sensing instruments. The officer, his rank insignia denoting him as an Ensign, stationed there was showing her the results of a scan he'd just finished running. "The only way I can explain this is by saying that it's a low pressure tunnel in the atmosphere of the gas giant. Even the EM readings are miniscule. I think a ship may be able pass through it. And it's huge. The diameter is around 950 kilometers."

"Any idea what's inside?"

He pulled up a composite photo of every sensor's readings on a large pull-down projection screen along the port bulkhead. "The EM signatures are too strong to get any clear readings but if a ship were going to hide here, this is the place."

"Okay, what could have caused it?"

"My guess is an asteroid or meteor that was big enough to cause a permanent atmospheric disturbance. For all intents and purposes, this is a crater. In an ordinary rocky planet, with a thinner atmosphere, the object would normally create a crater larger than the object itself. At the beginning, the tunnel is probably equal to the object that would have created it but it's likely it will be thinner and thinner as you go in, because the thick atmosphere of the gas giant would have crushed and broken apart the asteroid or meteor."

"Do you think we should go inside?"

"It's the only way we'll know what's in there. If we try to outfit a torpedo with instruments and send it, the planet's electromagnetic field will overpower the signal of the probe."

"I meant do you think we can survive it?"

"Yeah, I think it'd be like going into the eye of the storm. We'll need to have as much power going into the shields when we cross the threshold but once we're inside, the radiation and pressure should be negligible."

"Work with whomever you need to get us through this in one piece, okay?"

"Yes, sir." He saluted her and began running calculations as she walked out of the room.

Back in Command and Control, she was showing Data the scans Astrometrics had made of the tunnel. "Commander, is your theory that the actual ship which abducted all of those people is in here?"

"Yeah, also do you remember the decimated fleet in the Sol system?"

"I do."

"I think this ship attacked them and abducted the people there."

"But were the Pendramar not the ones which carried out this act?"

"I think the Pendramar and the Ragnarok may be working together, or at least some of the Pendramar."

"But why do the Ragnarok not just simply assimilate the Pendramar?"

"Maybe they can't."

"Perhaps, but we cannot afford to spend time on wild speculation. We will proceed ASAP."

Suddenly, the console beeped and Commander Morrison brought up what caused the alert on the display. "This is strange. Sir, it looks like the relay is activating and something is coming through... Wait, we're getting a transponder signal, Starfleet."

"Starfleet? Authenticate and confirm."

"It's confirmed, sir. USS Voyager, CVN 75."

"Why would Starfleet send another ship, let alone their newest carrier, here? These were supposed to be covert ops. A ship that size is going to give us away anywhere we go. Get Voyager Actual on the horn." A red light on Data's ear piece turned green to indicate the hailing frequencies were open. "Voyager Actual, this is Commander Data of the SRV Normandy requesting your orders and your reason for being here."

The radio hiss ceased to allow a woman's voice to come through. "This is Captain Janeway of the USS Voyager. I was sent here to provide any necessary assistance and to ascertain the status of the mission. I would request that you set course for our starboard flight nacelle and begin docking procedures."

"Wilco, Voyager." He cut the radio off and looked at the helmsman. "Proceed to dock with the Voyager."

"Aye, sir." The Normandy began heading at the aft end of the, by comparison, gigantic body of the Voyager, heading toward a large pod extending above and to the starboard aft end of the ship, held up by a large pylon. The top section was hollowed out and inside was a structure similar to a runway with lifts presumably to bring shuttles and fighters down to the hangar deck to be serviced.

Opposite of the starboard nacelle was the port landing nacelle, which was engaging in operations by launching fighters out of airlocks along its port side.

The Normandy was easily capable of fitting inside of the landing deck, sliding its port docking hatch to match up with a docking cradle, causing a rumbling of metal and a small jerk as the ships connected. Commander Data headed into the airlock, standing by to await the completion of the decontamination process. After it was finished, he headed down the hallway inside of the hatch and entered a lift, taking it down to the hangar where mechanics were servicing various types of craft. He stopped a pretty female Petty Officer to get directions. "What is the location of your CIC?"

"Deck 25, frame 40, section 15, room 01. Just head down the pylon and then you'll be on that deck, so just keep heading fore until you find frame 40 and there should be someone there who could give you directions."

Eventually, after wondering through hallways crowded with crewmen and marines walking back and forth, the Commander had arrived at a hatch labeled 'Combat Information Center' and stepped inside.

At the Command and Control station was a red haired woman with her hair pulled up into a bun, taking pads and signing reports as she continued to look at the sensor readouts on the large rectangular table doubling as a touch screen computer terminal. Data approached and saluted, noting her insignia. "Captain Janeway, sir."

"It's ma'am, Commander. At ease."

"Yes, ma'am." He returned to a standard posture and took position beside her as the Normandy sent their recon data. "We have determined that this ship, orbiting the gas giant is not the ship that has abducted our missing colonists. However, we have also found some sort of tunnel in the planet, where the atmosphere is significantly thinner and the radiation levels are within tolerance. We are positing that the ship is hiding there."

"But none of our sensors can penetrate the dense electromagnetic interference, correct?"

"Yes, that is correct, ma'am. How large is your ship? Will it be sufficient?"

"We have 85 decks, with a skeleton crew of 1,095 currently, 95 of them pilots. We can clear out enough room for approximately 7,530 people on board but that's going to leave us strained for room."

"That will not be sufficient, Captain, ma'am."

"Starfleet is aware, but the only other ship they could spare was the Intrepid. Captain Picard informed us that his ship was over eight days away, however."

"And they would be capable of transporting how many?"

"An additional 1,000 at least... With the emergency census count taken before we'd arrived here, that should be enough. If we can find and get assistance to our people in eight days. So, here's my plan: we will divert our Combat Air Patrol to the gas giant to scout ahead, with a J30 recon shuttle taking scans and an additional one just outside of the EM barrier of the planet to maintain radio contact for as long as possible. Once out of range, they will reverse the course, land and we'll take the Voyager in. Even if we encounter resistance, Normandy will remain docked as we deploy our fighters to hold off said resistance."

"And what of the Normandy?"

"If things start to go downhill, or I give you the signal, you will leave the flight nacelle and assist in covering the Voyager, understood?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"One more thing, I'm sending my tactical officer to coordinate with your gunnery officer. Lieutenant Tuvok, come over here."

A dark skinned Vulcan turned around from his coordination with two other crewmen at a large plotting table and array of computer terminals on a level slightly above and aft of the Command and Control station. He handed a data pad back to one of his assistants and walked over to the Captain. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'd like you to head back to the Normandy with Commander Data and coordinate the tactical planning there."

"Of course, ma'am." He saluted her and then Commander Data. "Are you the android?"

Data signaled for them to walk, and they continued their discussion as they did so. "As I have recently pointed out to my XO, the term 'cybernetic organism' or 'cyborg' would likely be more appropriate, as I do possess organic tissue which is mostly my flesh sheath."

"But your pale skin color would seem to indicate that it's not blood underneath, but something else."

"It carries out the same function as blood but it does not have ferric oxide, rust, to lend it the red color. It is an opaque, grayish yellow liquid, with simple molecules designed to capture and deliver oxygen without the need of bone marrow or lungs."

"That is... Intriguing. Commander, there is one problem with this plan that worries me. The hull design of the Voyager is not constructed for aerodynamic lift and we do not have the advanced mass altering fields that Vega class ships, like the Normandy have, to rectify this issue. Once we enter the planet's atmosphere, the Voyager will be in free fall so we will need to warp away before we reach crush depth."

They were now at the lift to the docking port and Data extended his hand out, signaling for Tuvok to enter first. "That will prove to be an issue, but these are all issues we can work out on the Normandy."

"Of course, Commander."

It was over an hour later and Captain Janeway was taking a few precious seconds to compose herself before activating her headset for the announcement. "Attention all hands, set Condition 2 throughout the ship. I repeat, set Condition 2 throughout the ship." She deactivated the radio and faced the helm. "Helm, set course 074 by 055, one quarter impulse. Once we're in the gravity well of the planet, let the gravity take over our thrust and just keep us steady."

"Aye, 074 mark 055 one quarter impulse. Four minutes until atmospheric entry, mark." The large hulking ship moved quickly toward the swirling eye in the planet's atmosphere, shaking as it got closer and the gravity well began having more of an effect on it. It slid quickly past the invisible EM barrier of the planet, and the helmsman started frantically adjusted the heading of the ship, while a crewman at the flight operations post, positioned at the starboard fore section of the CIC, fired thrusters to keep the Voyager from accelerating any quicker than it already was.

Janeway looked at the man at a station on the angled wall beside the flight ops post. "Air boss?"

"I've got Alpha Squadron and the CAP up with Alert fighters ready to go, ma'am."

The Captain turned toward the comm station starboard of hers, positioned in a little nook inside the wall on the level slightly above the level she, the helm, flight ops and the air boss were on. "Get me on the horn with Alpha one," She waited until the man at the comm post nodded. "Alpha 1, this is Voyager Actual, we've got no sensors here. What do you see?"

Over the radio, a woman's voice came in. "Reaper here, Voyager Actual. All I've got is gas... Wait, wait, I see something coming through the clouds now. I think you could see it from Voyager's observation deck. I don't know what it is. It looks like some sort of space station, I don't even know."

Another woman's voice came through, "Voyager Actual, this is Recon 1 and my ECO's getting something here. Says the radiation levels are pretty high so it's definitely powered."

Data, Tuvok and Morrison were listening to the transmission as they received a feed of Voyager's sensor readings through the data hard lines in the docking port, useless as the information was due to interference. But, even as he looked at the static patterns, Data could have sworn there was a pattern. "Lieutenant Tuvok, what do you make of this?"

He slowed the recording down for the Vulcan's organic eyes to perceive and turned the signal into an audio transmission. "I only hear and see the standard electromagnetic field fluctuation associated with power sources."

"You do not know the earth military code of Morse?"

"No, I can't say that I do, sir."

"Somehow, someone inside of that place is interruption a particular frequency in the radiation output in such a way that it is forming a message. It is saying SOS, repeatedly."


End file.
